Snatch accident

[MikeC1]

Hi Mr. Staley, I recently saw the video from the Beijing olympics of the accident where the guy was snatching and broke his arm. Did you see it? My question is, was there a technique issue that could have prevented that, or is this an unavoidable and inherent risk of lifting heavy?

[Charles Staley]

It most likely happened because he was a pussy ;-)

Seriously, it's just a freak thing. If you took every snatch performed over the course of 10 Olympic games, this might happen once or twice


Hi Mr. Staley, I recently saw the video from the Beijing olympics of the accident where the guy was snatching and broke his arm. Did you see it? My question is, was there a technique issue that could have prevented that, or is this an unavoidable and inherent risk of lifting heavy?

[skills101]

It's pretty obvious he was too slow to bail it. In a lot of videos, I see guys who drop the weights without the slightest struggle to complete the lift. I assume it's because they want to avoid instances where they make complete asses of themselves, as in the case of the Olympian.


Hi Mr. Staley, I recently saw the video from the Beijing olympics of the accident where the guy was snatching and broke his arm. Did you see it? My question is, was there a technique issue that could have prevented that, or is this an unavoidable and inherent risk of lifting heavy?

[NolanPower]

I believe that what happened here was that the lifter simply refused to miss the lift behind, and when you do that the bar exerts a huge force on your elbows, and given the bar weight to lifter joint size in this video the refusal to just let the weight go behind him on a lift that should have been a simple behind miss snapped his arm. Basically because it was the olympics and he wanted the lift that bad it happened.