Dubai 2014: Women’s -61kg at a glance

The IPC Powerlifting World Championships will run from 5-11 April in Dubai, UAE.

Egypt’s Fatma Omar will lead a strong class of women’s -61kg category lifters on Tuesday (8 April) at the 2014 IPC Powerlifting World Championships in Dubai, UAE.

Omar, who is married to Egyptian weightlifter Abdel Naby Mahoumd Saed, enters the event as a reigning Paralympic champion in the -56kg division and the world-record holder in the -61kg category.

She claimed London 2012 Paralympic gold before new weight classes were unrolled to start 2013, but that did not stop her, as she finished the first year of the new -61kg weight category at the No. 1 spot on the world rankings. Her best lift in 2013 was the successful 132kg she lifted at the IPC Powerlifting Asian Open Championships in November.

One of her main challengers in Dubai will be Mexico’s Amalia Perez, who won London 2012 gold in the women’s -60kg category before finishing third in the -61kg category at the Asian Open Championships, where she lifted just 5kg less than Omar.

The Chinese duo of Jianjin Cui and Yan Yang could also be threats to make the podium in Dubai in an event that will also include lifters from a diverse range of countries, including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Morocco, Syria and Chinese Taipei.