The favorites in the event were the same lifters that made up the first four places at the 1968 Summer Olympics. The snatch was won by Koji Miki of Japan with a lift of 112.5 kg. But in an out-of-competition attempt to break the world record he improved his own mark from 113.5 kg to 114.0 kg. The lifter placing 12th Soviet-born Israeli Ze’ev Friedman would become one of the victims of the kidnapping by the Palestinian Black September group.