The first Olympic silver medal in the history of independent Turkmenistan was won today by the master of sports from Ashgabat Polina Guryeva at the Tokyo Games. The student of the Turkmen State Institute of Physical Culture and Sports achieved this success in the weight category up to 59 kg, in which representatives of 14 countries competed.

In the combined event, the Turkmen weightlifter with a record result of 217 kg (snatch - 96 kg, jerk - 121 kg) was 3 kg ahead of the Japanese representative Mikiko Ando, who took the third place (snatch - 94 kg, clean and jerk - 120 kg). The four-time world champion, holder of 12 world records Kuo Xing-Chzhun (Taiwan) excelled in this weight category with three Olympic records in the snatch (103 kg), clean and jerk (133 kg) and the total (236 kg).

Polina Guryeva has been actively involved in sports since 2011. At first she attended the gymnastics section, after which she joined weightlifting. She learned the "basics" of this difficult sport for the fair sex with her first coach Akhmed Sariyev, under whose leadership she won a gold medal at the IV Solidarity Games of Islamic Countries held in 2017 in Baku. Currently, P. Guryeva is training at the school of higher sports skills of Turkmenistan with the head coach of the national team Artur Emiryan.