Katharine Estep Strikes Gold at 2023 IWF World Junior Championships Avenging Her Heart-Breaking 2022 Near-Miss

The sport of weightlifting requires mammoth amounts of discipline, technique, and explosive output for multiple bouts in an event. Displaying these qualities, US weightlifting prodigy Katharine Estep recently bagged the 65kg gold medal at the 2023 IWF World Junior Championship.

The 18-year-old Estep added another medal to her already impressive resume as she claimed the gold in Guadalajara, Mexico. A social media post celebrated Estep’s exploits as she rose to the top of the competition. Interestingly, her victory comes as a fitting reply to her heart-breaking near-miss in 2022 when she failed to claim the top prize.

The long-awaited gold medal to mend the 2022 loss

Katharine Estep is one of the USA’s top weightlifters who almost instantly blew up in the American and global weightlifting scene. USA Weightlifting announced the grand victory achieved by Katharine Estep via a tweet from its official X account. 

The tweet carried the caption, “A GOLDEN day for Katharine Estep! She wins the 64 kg weight class at the IWF World Junior Championships after putting up 94 kg in the snatch and 120 kg in the C&J for a 214 kg total! Team USA’s medal count climbs to 8.” With this gold medal victory, Katharine Estep has now successfully avenged her 2022 loss.

In 2022, the weightlifting prodigy fell short of the gold medal and had to settle for the silver medal. Interestingly, the young weightlifting athlete moved up a weight class to claim the gold medal. In fact, this is the third time Katharine Estep has switched her weight class in international competitions.

Katharine Estep aces new weight class in Guadalajara, Mexico

While Katharine Estep has three years of experience under her belt. However, she has already competed in three weight classes. Her gold medal in Guadalajara comes from the 65kg category after competing in the 55kg and 59kg weight classes.

As her career is progressing, Estep is moving towards higher weight classes, as she competed in 55kg in 2021, before switching to 59kg in 2022.

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Katharine Estep missed her first snatch attempt at 90kg, but successfully completed it in her second attempt. This was followed by a clean 94kg snatch lift in her third attempt. The initial setback followed by the eventual success is synonymous with her 2022 silver turning into a 2023 gold. With this gold medal under her belt, the young and resilient US weightlifting star will look forward to winning more tournaments.

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