Career
She set a world record in the clean and jerk on 29 July 2012 at the 2012 London Olympics by lifting 131 kg. Chinshanlo earned a gold medal at the 2014 World Championships. This was Kazakhstan"s first podium finish at the competition.
Zulfiya, according to her official profile, is an ethnic Dungan and speaks a Chinese dialect (Dungan language) as her first language.
According to Chinese official media Xinhua News, Zulfiya was born and grew up in Hunan Province, China, thus she has a Chinese name and can speak Chinese much more fluently than Russian. She emigrated to Kazakhstan in 2008 along with Maiya Maneza with the approval of Hunan sport officials on a five-year lease contract.
She returned to China in 2012. Chinese media wrote that the weightlifter received her Chinese Idaho in the Public Security Department of Changsha city on 22 October and was going to join the Chinese national team, because her 5-year contract with Kazakhstan allegedly expired.
But Kazakhstan sports authorities insist that Zulfiya Chinshanlo is a citizen of Kazakhstan:
“Zulfiya Chinshanlo is our sportswoman.
I don’t know why foreign media is discussing a change of her citizenship. She is a citizen of Kazakhstan. She had been living and training in Kazakhstan since she was 14.
Number official claims have been submitted to our Agency or the Weightlifting Federation.
Zulfiya was on vacation and decided to visit her relatives in China. On 27 October 2012 Chinshanlo came back from China and announced:
“I would like to say that everything written about me in China is not true.
I have proved it by coming back to Kazakhstan and being here right now. I would like to thank everyone who supported medical
Once again, all these rumors are lies and I don’t want to return to discussing this issue again.”
However, according to official Kazakh records, Zulfiya was born 25 July 1993 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Her father Salakhar Chinshanlo is a businessman who speaks fluently both Russian and Dungan language. 2012 London Olympics.
