Cuban Gains in Great Pain

These are the Olympic Games, so Cuban weightlifter Pablo Lara wasn’t about to let a torn callus stop him.

Lara tore a callus at the base of his right ring finger during the second of his three lifts in the snatch. After missing the third one, however, he returned with a strong performance in the clean-and-jerk to win the gold medal in the 167 1/2-pound weight class.

Lara, 28, combined to lift 810 pounds on his best efforts in the snatch and clean-and-jerk--11 pounds shy of the world record he set three months ago.

“It hurt very badly when I was doing the [final] snatch,” Lara said. “It hurt less in the clean-and-jerk.”

Yoto Yotov, 27, of Bulgaria won the silver medal with a total of 793 1/2 pounds.

Jon Chol-Ho, 27, of North Korea won the bronze with a total of 788 pounds. Viktor Mitrou, 23, of Greece also lifted 788, but Jon won the bronze by virtue of lighter body weight.

Lara was fourth after the snatch. He was injured while lifting 358 pounds, then failed at 369 1/4.

But those ahead of Lara in the snatch all fell out of contention by the time he attempted the clean-and-jerk.

There were no Americans among the 24 competitors.

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MEDALISTS / Weightlifting

167 1/2 POUNDS

Gold: Pablo Lara, Cuba

Silver: Yoto Yotov, Bulgaria

Bronze: Jon Choi-Ho, North Korea