Cao Lei (; born 24 December 1983 in

Qinhuangdao Qinhuangdao (; zh, s=秦皇岛, link=no) is a port city on the coast of China in northern Hebei. It is administratively a prefecture-level city, about east of Beijing, on the Bohai Sea, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea. Its population d ...

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

) is a

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

weightlifter Weightlifting or weight lifting generally refers to physical exercises and sports in which people lift weights, often in the form of dumbbells, barbells or machines. People engage in weightlifting for a variety of different reasons. These can ...

. She was born in north China's

Province and was raised in the northeastern

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...

Province.

Career

Cao Lei started weightlifting training at the age of 11 and attended Daging City sports school in 1997 when she was selected to the Heilongjiang province weightlifting team coached by Qixi Fu. After winning the national championships, Lei made her debut in the international field in 2001 in the Asian Championships 63 kilo category by winning gold with a result of 107.5 kg (a junior world record at the time) in snatch, and 127.5 kg in clean and jerk, totaling 235 kg. The next year she started training with the national team under the supervision of Ma Wenhui and moved up to the 69 kilo weight class in which she won the junior world championships 2003 with 105+140 kg performance. In 2005 Cao placed fourth in the National games and later the year won gold in the

East Asian Games The East Asian Games was a multi-sport event organized by the East Asian Games Association and held every four years from 1993 to 2013. Among those who competed included athletes from East Asian countries and territories of the Olympic Council ...

. The next year she moved up one weight class and participated in the women's -75 kg at the

2006 World Weightlifting Championships The 2006 World Weightlifting Championships were held at the Handball Pavilion and Weightlifting Pavilion Dr. José Joaquín Puello in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The event took place from September 30 to October 7, 2006. Medal summary M ...

and won the gold medal, snatching 118 kg and

clean and jerk The clean and jerk is a composite of two weightlifting movements, most often performed with a barbell: the clean and the jerk. During the ''clean'', the lifter moves the barbell from the floor to a racked position across the deltoids, without rest ...

ing an additional 150 kg for a total of 268 kg. Later the same year, she took gold in the Asian Games, besting her year ranking mark to 120 kg in the snatch and 152 kg in the clean and jerk. At the

2007 World Weightlifting Championships The Royal World Weightlifting Championships 2007 were held at the 700th Anniversary Sports Complex in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The event took place from September 17 to September 26, 2007. Medal summary Men Women Medal table Ranking by Big (To ...

she won the gold medal again in the same category, with a total of 286 kg. In 2009 she finished her weightlifting grand slam by taking gold in

Chinese National Games The National Games of the People's Republic of China is the highest-level comprehensive multi-sport event of China. It is hosted by the General Administration of Sport of China. The games is held every four years, usually in the summer or au ...

with a result of 125 kg in the snatch, 150 kg in the clean and jerk adding to 275 kg total. In the 2009 weightlifting world championships she wasn't able to sustain her supremacy over the 75 kilo weight class as

Svetlana Podobedova Svetlana Podobedova (; born May 25, 1986, Zima, Irkutsk) is a Russian-born Kazakhstani weightlifter. Career Podobedova was awarded the gold medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics in the women's 75 kg category with a total of 291 kg. Her 161&n ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

swept three gold medals, Cao took silvers in all three disciplines. Later that year she represented her country in

taking gold with routine performance of 252 kg total.

Doping violation

During the

2008 Beijing Olympic The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and officially branded as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes fr ...

games, Cao was placed first in the women's -75 kg weightlifting division. She set new Olympic records in the snatch and clean and jerk events, as well as setting a new overall score record. However, on 12 January 2017, it was announced that because of a doping violation she had been retroactively disqualified from the 2008 Olympic Games and was therefore stripped of her gold medal and her records annulled.

References

External links

Athlete Biography
at beijing2008
Olympic Profile
in Chinese * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cao, Lei Living people 1983 births Chinese female weightlifters 21st-century Chinese sportswomen Olympic weightlifters for China People from Qinhuangdao Weightlifters at the 2008 Summer Olympics Place of birth missing (living people) Asian Games medalists in weightlifting Weightlifters from Hebei Weightlifters at the 2006 Asian Games Weightlifters at the 2010 Asian Games Asian Games gold medalists for China Asian Games silver medalists for China Doping cases in weightlifting Chinese sportspeople in doping cases Medalists at the 2006 Asian Games Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games Competitors stripped of Summer Olympics medals World Weightlifting Championships medalists