Karlos Nasar

Karlos Nasar (Bulgarian: Карлос Насар; born 12 May 2004) is a Bulgarian weightlifter who is an Olympic, two-time World and three-time European champion and one of the youngest weightlifting world record holders ever. He was named Bulgaria's Sportsman of the Year for 2024. Nasar also received the 2024 Ikar Sports Award.

Nasar was born in Paris to a Bulgarian mother and a Lebanese father.^[1] He has two brothers, Lazarus and Ivan.^[2]

In Nasar's Olympic debut, he won the 2024 Olympic men's 89 kg event, breaking eight World and Olympic records in the process. In the 89 kg final, he first lifted 213 kg in the clean & jerk for a new OR, and then proceeded to a World (and Olympic, and Junior) best mark of 224 kg. Adding these results to the 180 kg successful attempt in the snatch, he established an OR in the total (393 kg) and then a World, Olympic, and World Junior global mark of 404 kg. Out of the 13 records in the male competition in Paris, he was responsible for eight of them.

At 17 years old, he broke the world record in the men’s 81 kg Clean & Jerk event with 208 kg to win the 2021 World Weightlifting Championships,^[3] simultaneously setting the junior and youth world records with a world record 374 kg total. He became the third youngest world champion in the history of weightlifting at the age of 17 years and 214 days, beaten by another Bulgarian Sevdalin Marinov, who became the world champion in the 52 kg in 1985 when he was 17 years and 47 days old, and Ilya Ilyin, who became world champion in the 85 kg class at 17 years and 183 days old.

At 18 years old, he broke the world record in the men's 89 kg Clean & Jerk event with 220 kg to win the Clean & Jerk event at the 2022 World Weightlifting Championships held in Bogotá, Colombia.^[4] He became the only male weightlifter to hold world records in two different categories.

In December 2024, he won his second World Championship in Manama, Bahrain setting a new snatch senior record of 183 kg and also a new total senior record of 405 kg, surpassing for the second time the 400 mark in category 89 kg. Amazingly, those were junior world records too because, Nasar is still only 20 years old.

In 2021, at the age of 16, he competed at the European Weightlifting Championships in the 81 kg category,^[5] winning the silver in the snatch and in the total and the gold medal in the clean & jerk portion with a new European record of 206 kg ER. It was a fight between Antonino Pizzolato and him in which the Italian won with 1 kg difference in total.

In April 2023, at just 18 years old, at the 2023 European Weightlifting Championships in Yerevan, Armenia, he won the gold medal in the Clean & Jerk and in the Total, and the silver medal in the Snatch in the 89-kilogram division, where he broke five world records.^[6] Nasar’s staggering 221-kilogram (487.2-pound) clean & jerk record lift allowed him to break the:^[7]

• Junior World Record Clean & Jerk
• Junior World Record Total
• Senior World Record Clean & Jerk
• Senior World Record Total

In addition, Nasar’s gold-medal-winning, record-setting Total of 395 kilograms was built with his best competition snatch of 174 kilograms (383.6 pounds). That snatch was also a new Junior World Record, his fifth on the same day.^[8] Nasar's result in Yerevan made him Best weightlifter of the European Championship in all categories. Nasar scored 1,000 points on the Robi points system. Lasha Talahadze is in second place with 883.5 points, and Garik Karapetyan is third with 847.6 points.

As of 19 April, 2025, Karlos Nasar has set 12 senior world weightlifting records for 3 different weights (81 kg, 89 kg, 96 kg), records before the 01.01.2025 are also valid as junior world record for the respective category, records before 2022 are also valid as youth world record for the respective category.

Full list of Nasar's senior world records follows:

As of 19 April, 2025, Karlos Nasar holds the following 5 senior world records:

As of 31 December, 2024, Nasar has set twenty junior world records in categories up to 81 kg and up to 89 kg, records before 2022 are also valid as youth world record for the respective category.

As of 31 December, 2024, Karlos Nasar holds the following junior world records:

Karlos Nasar has achieved twelve youth world records all set at 81 kg category at the European and World Championships in 2021.

As of 31 December, 2024, Karlos Nasar holds the following youth world records:

• Karlos Nasar at the International Weightlifting Federation
• Karlos Nasar at IAT Database Weightlifting (in German)
• Karlos Nasar at Olympics.com
• Karlos May Nasar at IAT Database Weightlifting (in German)