China won another back-to-back gold at Olympic weightlifting and Team USA Jourdan Delacruz from Wylie redeemed her performance from the last Olympics.
Hours after her teammate Hampton Morris made history with his third-place finish attempt at a world record, Delacruz fought out a field of strong competition in the women's 49kg weight class, and improved upon her Tokyo 2020 performance, but unfortunately was unable to claim a place on the podium.
In the snatch, Delacruz's successfully lifted her first attempt at 84kg, but she was unable to stand up her following two attempts. Tokyo gold medalist Hou Zhihui surprisingly underperformed and missed her first attempt. She made her second at 89kg and missed her third. The defending champion's results left room for Romania's Mihaela Valentina Cambei to put herself in the lead at 93kg after she made all of her three lifts.
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In the clean & jerk, it's a comeback story for Delacruz. The 26-year-old from Texas failed to receive a total in Tokyo 2020 after she missed all three of her clean & jerk attempts at 108kg.
On Wednesday, Delacruz opened with a conservative 105kg, and it was a correct and successful choice. She increased to 110kg in her second attempt, but she couldn't control the jerk. Her successful last attempt at 111kg put her at the fifth spot with a total of 195kg --- it was 5kg behind the eventual bronze medalist.
The gold was all but Hou's, but Cambei seemed to be having one of the best days in her career and was ready to dethrone the Chinese lifter. The 22-year-old Romanian didn't miss a single lift, totaling at 205kg and putting herself far ahead of Hou who had two attempts left to take back the gold.
Hou, 27, missed her second clean & jerk attempt at 117kg, and Cambei could do nothing but wait to see if her third attempt will beat the Romanian out for the gold. It did, by 1kg. Hou claimed back-to-back gold with an Olympic record in the clean & jerk at 117kg in the nail-biting session.
Thailand's Khamboa Surodchana had a strong performance in the clean & jerk and positioned herself in third place.
NBC 5's Laura Harris caught up with Delacruz after the competition.
"That wasn't my favorite performance, it definitely wasn't something that I expected, but I'm really proud of myself for pulling through on that last clean and jerk and I really do feel, well-rounded, pretty good that my family's here and I've had just an amazing experience so far," she said.
Delacruz called the experience surreal compared to the Tokyo Olympics where no fans or family were present. "I had no idea this is what the Olympics was like," she said with a smile.
It's clear Delacruz has enjoyed the Olympic experience this time around. "Obviously as a competitor you want to get a medal, you want to do your best," she said. "But just as an overall human -- just knowing that my family is here, just spending time with teammates, being in the Olympic village has been amazing."
