Last Saturday, on February 22, 2025, the 2 nd European Team Cup was an absolute treat for all weightlifting fans. In a packed hall – 250 spectators, at the Sport Park Auwiesen, the “Steel City” team left nothing to chance. In front of the ORF TV public broadcaster cameras, the 20-time Austrian champion SK VÖEST Linz defeated the 8-time German title holder AV 03 Speyer in the final with 2169,49 to 2040,50 Sinclair points. GRAZER WITH NEW AUSTRIAN RECORD IN THE GENERAL CLASS
The outstanding member of the Linz team was undoubtedly the 20-year-old Elias Simbürger from Graz, from the SK VÖEST Linz team, who managed to book an Austrian general class record with 190 kg, in the 96 kg BW category. With 182 kg and 190 kg in the clean and jerk and a total of 330 kg, three more national records joined the U23 class. In the snatch, things did not go as planned for Elias, as he only managed to lift successfully only the first snatch attempt with 140 kg. With 392,23 Sinclair points, he was declared the Best Lifter of the evening.
TEAM SPEYER SHINED WITH OLYMPIAN SCHWEIZER LISA MARIE From Team Speyer, the 2022 European champion in snatch in the 71 kg class and participant at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo shone especially with the 216 kg in total and 391,95 Sinclair points, making her the second Best of the evening, right after Simbürger.
2nd European Weightlifting Team Championship – Linz (Austria) – VIDEO LINK
This competition format was born in 2023, in Obrigheim (Germany), with the idea of creating a competition of champions from several teams and countries. In the first edition, in addition to teams from Austria and Germany, a team from Great Britain also took part.
1st European Weightlifting Team Championship – Obrigheim (Germany) – 2023.09.30 VIDEO LINK
In the competition in Linz, which enjoyed a large audience, as it did in the first edition, teams from Slovenia, Hungary, Czechia and France should have also participated, but, for objective reasons, they had to give up. Despite all this, the desire to continue the project has been fulfilled. The project wants to expand with the participation of more teams from European countries and the Austrian Federation is one of the most active supporters.
The President of the Austrian Weightlifting Federation, Gerhard Peya, also attended the competition and presented the trophy to the winner team.
Congratulations to all the participants and to the organizers!