By Brian Oliver
Bulgaria had two champions on the second day of the 2025 European Championships at the Chisinau Arena in Moldova when Angel Rusev and Ivan Dimov won the opening men’s contests at 55kg and 61kg.
Garence Rigaud from France won the third medal event of the day, the women’s 55kg, when she made all six attempts to beat last year’s winner Aleksandra Grigoryan from Armenia, who made only two good lifts.
Rusev failed twice in snatch and was eighth at halfway but was always confident of victory. He declined his final attempt, shouting “I’m number one!” as he left the platform with his fifth straight continental 55kg title assured – all won by the age of 23. He made two good lifts for 105-141-246.
The 55kg category will cease to exist from June 1, after which the lightest of the new weight classes for men will be 60kg.
“That won’t be a problem, but it will be very competitive with everyone moving up from 55 and plenty more coming down from 61,” said Rusev. He is not daunted by the fact that he might have to add about 40kg to his total to be competitive at the higher weight.
“I’ve made totals around 290kg when I’ve trained at 64-65kg, snatch 127 and clean and jerk 160,” he said. He would have competed at 61kg here but for suffering a shoulder injury during his preparations.
Danu Secrieru claimed second place for the host nation with an impressive six-from-six performance, taking Sergio Massidda’s European youth record in snatch. The 17-year-old made 110-135-245, which was 3kg short of the record on total and 14kg up on his best effort at last year’s European Juniors, where he was third.
Secrieru has a busy few weeks. He is in Moldova’s team of seven for the World Youth and World Junior 55kg categories in Lima, Peru where he is due to lift on April 30.
Ramini Shamilishvili from Georgia was third on 109-134-243. The fourth and fifth-placed finishers, Cristian Luca from Romania and Harun Algul from Turkiye, won silver and gold in snatch respectively.
There were no snatch failures for Dimov at 61kg – unlike his last appearance. At the Paris Olympic Games Dimov failed twice at 134kg and then at 135kg as he bombed out.
Today, in his first competition since Paris he made all three snatches to build an advantage of 11kg at halfway. That was too much for his chasers, Garnik Cholakyan from Armenia and Goderdzi Berdelidze from Georgia. Dimov declined his final attempt after five good lifts for 135-154-289.
There was a big cheer for Ion Badanev when he made his final attempt at 152kg. That put the Moldovan third, but he was knocked off the podium on total when Berdelidze made his final lift to move up to second place on 123-153-276.
Cholakyan was third on 124-151-275 from only two good lifts. Badanev won clean and jerk bronze but was fourth on total because he made his 275kg after Cholakyan.
In the women’s session, Grigoryan was expected to continue her impressive run of form since winning the junior world title in 2023, but was too far behind after failing with two snatch attempts and could not catch Rigaud.
Having previously competed at 59kg, Rigaud, 25, made career-best numbers at this weight on 92-113-205. Celine Delia from Italy had a chance to overtake her but failed and finished fourth, then Grigoryan had two attempts at the junior world record on 121kg. She failed both times and finished second on 85-117-202.
Grigoryan, 20, won continental junior and senior titles last year, and was the only European woman to win a medal on total at the World Championships in Bahrain four months ago, where Rigaud was 3kg behind her in fourth. Grigoryan was named EWF-AIPS Athlete for the Future at Saturday’s opening ceremony in Chisinau.
Snatch gold medallist Olha Ivzhenko from Ukraine was third on 93-108-201, the same total as Delia, who was third in clean and jerk. Cansel Ozkan from Turkey was third in snatch and fifth on total.