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Akbar Djuraev vs. Liu Huanhua is the heavyweight title fight of the year. They’ll trade blows at the World Championships in October, on “Gigachad’s” home turf.
But the real showdown will be at the 2028 Olympics—on social media, Yilin (@squat_jerk_journalist) and Thomas (@vintage.lifts) spent the last few weeks debating who will win gold in Los Angeles.
Team Djuraev (starts here): Akbar has more training time around 110KG and bigger known lifts.
Team Gigachad (starts here): Liu is younger, has room to bulk up, and has never lost to Djuraev.
We’re taking it further. Greg Nuckols is one of the industry’s leading strength sport researchers. When we showed him both athletes’ careers in full, he pointed to this study on the strength trajectories of weightlifters:
2028 Olympics
Djuraev vs. Liu
Greg’s take:
“In a vacuum, you’d expect that Djuraev is either at or very near his peak, and may be some trivial amount weaker in 2 years, whereas you’d expect Liu to be around 3% stronger than his current form in 2028, based on the typical aging trajectory of lifters in that weight class.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Liu improved more than the norm since he’s still adapting to his new weight class … Djuraev’s 428 may signal a return to form, but it’s hard to predict since it was such a large departure from his previous trajectory. It looks like his best days are behind him.”
Seb’s take:
“While I like reading informed takes from guys like Greg Nuckols, this study does not accurately predict the future, only averages out the past. Right now Akbar is the best, and likely will remain the better snatcher. In time, I believe Liu will surpass him in the clean & jerk.
It’s too soon to make a call, but never forget the old weightlifting adage: ‘Snatch for show, clean & jerk for dough.’ Personally, I wouldn’t want to leave Liu with the final lift.”
Towards the end of the quad, when both have logged multiple events at the same weight, we’ll get a much more accurate model of what’ll happen in LA. In five months, we get our first glimpse.
