NAGOYA, Japan — Cui Zhe’s gold was already secured when she called for 120 kilograms, a weight she said she had never lifted in competition. She put it up cleanly, turned to the crowd and waved.
China took 26 gold medals on the first day of competition at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Para Games, the International Paralympic Committee reported, and Cui’s title in the women’s 41kg powerlifting on Monday was the first of them, according to Xinhua. She opened with 110kg, 10kg clear of Tursynay Kabyl of Kazakhstan, and moved to 115kg on her second attempt.
The title was settled at Kabyl’s third attempt. When the Kazakh lifter, the penultimate to go, selected 104kg, Cui could no longer be caught. That left the 120kg as a matter between Cui and her own best, the 119kg that, in Xinhua’s account, she set at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. She turns 40 in less than two months.
It is not her first time at the front. Cui has competed at all five editions of the Asian Para Games and won gold at each, Xinhua reported, and her 2018 title in Jakarta was also China’s first gold of those Games. A Paralympic veteran since Beijing 2008, she finally claimed Paralympic gold in Paris in 2024. She said she “focused on staying calm” and “just wanted to get every detail right.”
More than half of China’s golds on the day came in the pool. Paralympic.org’s report on the day put 14 of them in swimming, with hosts Japan second on eight and Uzbekistan third on six. Its separate account of the men’s 49kg final, where China’s Chen Liuxun took bronze on 161kg, credited Jordan’s Omar Qarada with the first gold of the Games on a 176kg lift. The Games run to 24 October.
Two things are missing. Xinhua does not say whether Cui’s 120kg is an Asian Para Games record or a mark for her class, and it does not name the bronze medallist behind her. Cui called Nagoya “a test on the road to the 2028 Paralympics” in Los Angeles. How much heavier she can go by then is the question the lift leaves open.
