Albert Delos Santos has been chasing one specific medal for a while now, and on Tuesday in Tashkent, the wait finally ended.
The 19-year-old ruled the men’s 70kg junior category at the 2026 Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships, sweeping all three golds on offer—snatch, clean and jerk, and total. He topped the snatch at 141kg, the clean and jerk at 180kg, and finished with a winning total of 321kg. It’s the snatch gold that matters most here. That particular medal had eluded the Zamboanga City native heading into this competition, and it’s the one piece of hardware his growing collection was still missing.
The clean and jerk performance carried its own weight beyond the gold medal attached to it. His successful 180kg lift set new junior records in the men’s 70kg category, both world and Asian. It builds on a run that’s already been remarkable this year—back in May, Delos Santos broke the world junior clean and jerk record outright, lifting 187kg at the 2026 IWF World Junior Weightlifting Championships in Ismailia, Egypt.
Albert Delos Santos Stamp His Class as Next Big Star
Three golds and two new junior records in one competition is the kind of night that would headline any athlete’s season. For Albert Delos Santos, it’s simply the latest entry in a run that keeps getting more impressive by the month.
He doesn’t get much time to enjoy it, either. The 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, await him next month, giving him barely any runway before the next major test.
Delos Santos’ haul also capped off a strong showing for the Philippines as a whole at the championships, with the country finishing with 16 gold, 6 silver, and 9 bronze medals overall.
