Chinese veteran Chen Lijun, who pulled out of the men's weightlifting event because of leg cramps at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and has since struggled with injuries, staged a thrilling comeback and won the men's 67kg gold medal Sunday at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Chen lifted 145kg, 187kg and 332kg in snatch, clean and jerk, and total respectively, breaking the Olympic record of the last two. Luis Javier Mosquera Lozano of Colombia and Mirko Zanni of Italy got the silver and bronze medals.

However, victory was hard earned. Chen easily completed his first lift of 145kg in snatch, but failed the following two attempts, challenging 150kg and 151kg. Such an underperformance threw him into huge disadvantage as Chen trailed Mosquera Lozano of Colombia by 6kg.

Having no other choice but to push himself, Chen started the clean and jerk with 175kg. He succeeded in the first attempt, but so did Mosquera Lozano, who thus still led by six.

Mosquera Lozano challenged 180kg twice in his last two attempts and did it in the last lift, leaving a total of 11kg for Chen to beat.

Chen chose 187kg in his second clean and jerk attempt – he lifted that weight before but that is still a risky choice, especially after Zanni failed twice to challenge 184kg.

Chen came out, grabbed the barbell, lifted it up solidly over his head and stood straight long enough to claim an epic comeback victory to win the honor.