Li Wenwen's injury in the super-heavyweights led to their only failure, while the men’s team fared less well despite Liu Huanhua producing one of the best performances of the fortnight at 102 kilograms.

Li Dayin's defeat by the Iranian Mir Mostafa at 89kg was a big surprise, one of many in a Championships that has featured plenty of world records but even more failures by athletes hoping to move up the ranking lists.

In the men’s events, one world title and three other medals went to C Group lifters. B Group athletes made eight visits to the podium. Tojo Andriatsitohaina from Madagascar missed a medal by a kilogram in the 73kg Olympic category from the D Group.

The top 10 finishers at 73kg and 102kg, both on the Paris 2024 schedule, featured collectively two from D, two from C and four from B.

A Group failures were as much a factor as B-C-D successes. There were plenty of underperformers in B Groups too, while red lights for attempts five and six were commonplace in A sessions.

In the five Olympic men’s categories, not one A Group lifter had six from six.

It was clearly a man thing: only two B Group women won medals, both in the non-Olympic 64kg category, and the "outlier" medallist in the 59kg C Group was an Olympic champion, Kuo Hsing-Chun from Chinese Taipei.

"What is she doing in the C Group?" was a frequently asked question on social media.

For those lucky enough to be here in Saudi Arabia’s capital it was relentlessly weird and wonderful.

There were a few possible reasons for athletes to skip the A Group. Some were on the way back from injury, others preferred to focus on the Asian Games, where weightlifting is due to start in Hangzhou, China on September 30.

The most common explanation offered privately by coaches, athletes and others was the fact that, for many, these “mandatory” World Championships were more about posting a qualifying total than winning medals.

Quite a few opted - or perhaps their coach did - to post a low entry total for tactical reasons, to escape the stress of the A Group. Thailand and Indonesia both had two athletes on the podium from B or C Groups.

"I prefer to lift in B because it’s more like a training session than a competition, you can stay calm, no rushing," was the view of Rahmat Erwin from Indonesia, who has now broken two world records, won gold medals at two World Championships, and earned an Olympic bronze from the B Group.

Jang Yeonhak from South Korea agreed when he spoke after taking silver behind Liu at 102kg and moving into second place in the Paris 2024 rankings. "You control the timing yourself," he said.

Even so, Jang had not expected to win three medals. He was helped by so many red lights in the evening session, the most likely reason for which was athletes taking risks with their opening numbers and going all-out for a total that would boost their ranking.

It was clear on the original start list that too many were going beyond their comfort zone. Nobody eligible for Paris 2024 - the rankings leader from Kazakhstan is out of the race because of doping - had hit the 400kg mark in qualifying, yet five men posted 400kg or more as an entry total.

Only Liu made it, while the other four were collectively 45kg short. Reza Dehdar from Iran was 20kg lower than his original entry total.

A couple of coaches who have been in the sport for decades, the triple Olympian Tom Goegebuer from Belgium and the Canadian Syrian Hani Kanama, gave their views.

Goegebuer said, "Lifting in a group that is far below an athlete's level seems illogical to me.

"For the sake of having interesting competitions it is best if athletes with equal level are competing against each other and to avoid medals from C Groups.

"One could think about an inverse 20kg rule [your opening lift numbers added together must not be more than 20kg below your entry total] so that people cannot start much higher than their entry total.

"On the other hand, the density of performances is so high nowadays that B Group athletes will take a medal now and then."

Kanama, who worked with lifters from three nations here, said, "I would never put an entry number for an athlete who has never accomplished it in competition. In fact, I think it should be a Federation rule.

"It’s bad for the athletes mentally, they’re setting themselves up to fail.

"Some have exaggerated their totals to try to get into the A Group but there are too many good lifters, and they end up in B, and because of the 20kg rule they are doing poorly."

Kanama also agreed with a comment from Forrester Osei, chair of the IWF Athletes Commission, that too many athletes seem more concerned about their social media profile than preparing properly for the big day in competition.

They post videos of big lifts a day or two before competition and cannot match them on the platform because they have "overtrained and left their best lifts on a training hall video".

Kanama said, "It’s bad for their mental and physical health. I’ve seen a worrying number of athletes with back and shoulder injuries because of over-training during this Olympic qualifying period."