IWF120y/81 – 2000: Soraya Jimenez (MEX) shines before a tragic decline

In 1997, when the International Olympic Committee decided on the introduction of women’s weightlifting in the Games programme (from Sydney 2000), Soraya Jimenez (MEX) was 20 years old. Years before, with her sister, she practiced basketball, but her relatively low height soon became a challenge. After trying badminton and swimming, she opts for weightlifting when she is 14. Soon spotted by the best coaches in the country, amazed by her strength, she starts getting her first notable results, mainly at domestic and regional level. In 1996, she wins gold at an international competition in Venezuela and establishes her first Mexican record. In 1999, she is second at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg (CAN) and manages to qualify for the 2000 Olympics, in the group of women competing for the first time at this level. In the 58kg category, and despite the favourite status of DPR Korea’s Ri Song Hui, she obtains the first-ever Olympic gold medal (all sports included) for a female athlete from Mexico. Successfully lifting all her six attempts, she finishes in 95-127.5-222.5. She remains the only lifter (all genders) with a gold medal for Mexico in our sport. After this amazing success, her career (and personal life) will soon decline. In 2002, she forges documents to prove she is a university student in order to attend the University Games. Soon after, she receives a six-month suspension for the use of prohibited substances and in 2004 she fails to qualify for the Athens Olympics. She then decides to retire, but her health deteriorates very quickly. After several operations on her left leg, and a near-to-death situation in 2007 (due to a bad case of influenza), she succumbs to a heart attack in 2013, at the age of 35.