ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING — Hungarian strongman Janos Baranyai’s first Olympics ended in agony Wednesday when he dislocated his right elbow in the ugliest moment yet of the Olympic weightlifting competition.
Baranyai was trying to snatch 148 kilograms in his third lift in the men’s 77-kilogram division, when his elbow popped out of socket.
No longer able to support the weight of the barbell, his right forearm bent backward. The 24-year-old Hungarian fell to the floor in shock, shaking and crying out in pain.
Hungary’s coaching staff and competition officials rushed to Baranyai’s aid as he lay trembling on the floor, his arm limp and twisted out of position.
Baranyai was carried off the platform on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to a hospital for evaluation and treatment.
"There was a dislocation of the elbow but the bones are not broken," Hungarian weightlifting federation boss Tamas Feher said. "They just put it right back, but I think he’s lost the rest of the year."
Feher said Baranyai was OK and watching the rest of Wednesday’s weightlifting competition on TV from a his bed at China-Japan Friendship Hospital in Beijing.
"It looked really awful," said Benny Johansson, a technical controller at the event. "If the ligaments are damaged then it could take several months to heal."
He said elbow and knee injuries are the most common injuries in the sport, "but the number of injuries are quite small in comparison with the number of athletes. You cannot even compare it with football for example."
A former judo wrestler from Oroszlany, Hungary, Baranyai was competing with the so-called B-group of lifters in the 77-kilogram division; the top contenders in the A-group were set to enter the contest later Wednesday.
Hungary’s lone lifter in the Olympics, he was ninth in both the snatch and clean and jerk in the European Championship earlier this year and placed 33rd in last year’s world championship.
He cleared his first snatch attempts at 140 kilograms and 145 kilograms before loading up the bar at 148 kilograms a relatively modest weight in top-level competition. The world record in the snatch is 173 kilograms.
In the snatch, the bar is pulled overhead in one continuous motion as the lifter settles into a squat, then rises with arms extended. Baranyai was in the squat position when his elbow popped.
"He’s 24 so at least he has two more Olympics," Feher said. "He’s our biggest hope for London 2012."
