It was with a heavy heart that Shi Zhiyong, a delicate strongman of China, embarked on his Athens journey. And a little heavier than qualification standard bodyweight even bothered him more.

Now, with a gold in hand, he eyed a delicious meal. And more, the Olympics gold medallist in the men's 62kg desired to serve more people with his food, opening a restaurant when he retired from the power sport.

"I lost four kilograms the last three days," Shi told reporters. "I am planning to run my own restaurant when I retired (from the sport)."

The 24-year-old Shi, strongly motivated to clinch a gold at the Games, appeared a bit worried over his Olympic prospects.

Working very hard to fill the gap between the expectations and the top performance when mounting on the platform at Nikaia Olympic Weightlifting Hall, he went to see the team doctor.

The communication between the two did work out in stabilizing the mentality of the Olympic debutant, who began to concentrate on training.

However, he had to loose his bodyweight to be qualified, a painful experience for a strongman.

"A sad story might lie behind every successful lifter," Shi said. "For me, at this point, it was that I endured being hungry for a few days."

As his pre-Olympics experiences were full of anxieties, hunger, and or a little sadness as he described, his Olympic moment in limelight came out when he made a somersault on jerking up a decisive 172.5kg in the second attempt.

"I didn't elaborately prepare a somersault for the Games, or anything," he said. "I often did it when I was young. I simply felt like it when I jerked up the barbells in the second attempt."

Born in China's southeast Fujian province, Shi began weightlifting training in September 1993 and joined the Fujian provincial team in 1996 and the national team in February 1997.

An Asian champion in the 62kg discipline in 2000 and a silver medallist at the World Championships in Vancouver in 2003, Shi is the current world record holder in snatch in the division.

As the Athens 2004 gold medallist, Shi was now desiring only food snatching, with which he savored his Olympic moment.

Source: Xinhua