London 2012 Olympic silver medallist Tatiana Kashirina is set to return to international weightlifting competition after a four-year absence ©Getty Images

Tatiana Kashirina, who made the biggest total in the history of women’s weightlifting, is lined up for a return to international competition next week after an absence of nearly four years.

The Russian multiple world record holder is entered at the second CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) Games in Belarus, where an Olympic gold medallist and a host of athletes hoping to qualify for Paris 2024 will also compete.

Super-heavyweights Kashirina and Andrei Aramnau, the Beijing 2008 winner at 105 kilograms, are the biggest names among nearly 200 weightlifters from 12 nations who will lift in Grodno, home town of the double Olympic champion Aleksandr Kurlovich.

Yemen, Vietnam, Cuba and Venezuela will join hosts Belarus and seven other former Soviet states - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The Games feature 20 sports, most of which will take place in the capital Minsk, where the Opening Ceremony will be held on Saturday (August 5), a day after the competition begins in Grodno.

Aramnau, 35, a world champion at 105kg in 2007, has not competed since 2021 when he was down the field in the super-heavyweights at the European Championships.

Kashirina, 32, a silver medallist at London 2012, made an all-time best of 155-193-348 at the 2014 IWF World Championships in Kazakhstan in the old plus-90 category.

Her hopes of winning Olympic gold were thwarted by ineligibility for Rio 2016 and the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

Russia was barred outright from Rio because of multiple doping violations and Kashirina was controversially suspended - a decision that was later overturned - eight months before Tokyo based on evidence from an investigation into malpractice at the Moscow Laboratory about 10 years ago.

Belarus' team competed as neutrals all in grey in Havana, but can lift in national colours at their home CIS Games ©Brian Oliver
Belarus' team competed as neutrals all in grey in Havana, but can lift in national colours at their home CIS Games ©Brian Oliver

Kashirina last competed at the 2019 International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships in Pattaya, Thailand, where she finished second to the reigning world and Olympic champion Li Wenwen from China.

Kashirina totalled 318kg in Pattaya, whereas in Grodno she has posted an entry total of 230kg.

Unlike Belarus, Russia declined to sign up to strict conditions imposed by the IWF in May that would have allowed its athletes to compete as neutrals in the Paris qualifying system.

Maxim Agapitov, President of the Russian Weightlifting Federation, said the conditions "go against everything the Olympic principles stand for."

Russia did not change its mind for the IWF World Championships and will have no athletes at the competition in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in September.

Its team for the CIS Games includes Timur Naniev, the only lifter in any weight category with an entry total of more than 400kg.

Naniev, who has posted a 415kg entry at 109kg, was third in the 2021 European Championships and fourth at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, where he was the only male weightlifter from Russia.

Russia’s leading women are Olga Te, the 59kg European champion in 2021, and Iana Sotieva, who was junior world champion and a senior World Championships bronze medallist at 76kg two years ago.

Athletes from Belarus competed as Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN) at the IWF Grand Prix in Havana, Cuba in May and will do so again, clad in grey with no national logos, in Riyadh.

But in Grodno they will be able to lift in national colours because the CIS Games is not an IWF event.

Timur Naniev, the only male weightlifter from Russia at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, features as part of the country's CIS Games ©Getty Images
Timur Naniev, the only male weightlifter from Russia at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, features as part of the country's CIS Games ©Getty Images

All but two of the Belarusians who travelled to Cuba, where four were winners, will compete in Grodno.

The absentees from the CIS Games both had fitness problems in Havana, Ihar Lozka who withdrew after weighing in at 89kg, and the super-heavyweight Eduard Ziaziulin who retired after making one successful snatch.

They are both entered in the World Championships along with their AIN team-mates.

Another big name in the host nation’s CIS Games team is Darya Naumava, a double Olympian who won a silver medal at 75kg in Rio.

Cuba will stay in Belarus after the CIS Games, as will Turkmenistan, for pre-World Championships training camps.

Five of Cuba’s team sit in the top 15 of the Paris 2024 rankings in their respective weight categories, led by Ayamey Medina in the women’s 81kg and Arley Calderon in the men’s 61kg.

Venezuela’s top name in Belarus is the Pan American 81kg champion Darvin Castro.

The highest entry totals in the women’s events are all in the 87kg category rather than the super-heavyweights.

Tursunoy Jabborova, one of several medal contenders from Uzbekistan, is on 250kg, followed by two women on 240kg - the 18-year-old Cuban Mariflex Sarria and Yaniuska Espinoza from Venezuela, who at 36 is twice her age.

The competition starts on Friday (August 4), and finishes on August 10, and is set to be streamed on YouTube.