IRAWAN Eko Yuli

General
EARLY DAYS
His father worked as a rickshaw driver and his mother was a vegetable trader in Lampung, Indonesia. As a boy he used to work herding goats, which he says taught him how to be responsible. He left the job after finishing primary school and joining a national weightlifting training centre in Bogor, Indonesia. "If I lost a goat, I had to pay for it. We were poor. We had to be careful doing our job." (cnnindonesia.com, 24 Jun 2020; bola.com, 17 Jun 2018; thejakartapost.com, 21 Jul 2010; suarakarya-online.com, 03 Jul 2008)

FAMILY SUPPORT
His son Muhammad Azzam Al Hafidz was born a week after he won a gold medal in the 62kg category at the 2018 Asian Games in Indonesia. "My wife was in the crowd watching with my son in her belly when I won the gold medal. She didn't dare watch me lift. At the time she said she felt very emotional and would have preferred to lift the weight herself rather than watch me. Earlier that day she also said, 'What if the baby comes when I'm watching you competing?' I was just trying my best to focus on my lifts, and then I went straight to look for her after receiving the medal." (Indosiar YouTube channel, 04 Sep 2018; Najwa Shihab YouTube channel, 29 Aug 2018)

RETIREMENT THOUGHTS
He has come close to retiring from the sport twice during his career because of injuries and the pressure of trying to win a medal. "There were two occasions [between 2015 and 2017] that I wanted to quit. The most intense was when I was told on short notice to compete at the 2017 Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan. Suddenly I had to go on a diet again. It was not in the national training programme, it was like a try-out, but the target was always gold. But then when I calmed down I always thought about the Olympic gold medal, which I still do not have." (cnnindonesia.com, 24 Jun 2020)

His silver medal in the 62kg category at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro made him the first Indonesian male athlete to win three medals in total at the Olympic Games. He also claimed bronze at the 2012 Games in London and the 2008 Games in Beijing. (SportsDeskOnline, 12 Sep 2018)