IRAWAN Eko Yuli

General
RETIREMENT PLANS
He intends to retire after the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. "I don't want to retire yet, I still don't have the [Olympic] gold medal. That's actually my motivation to continue. However, the most important thing for me now is how to prepare young lifters to be my successors. That's the challenge." (kompas, 27 Sep 2021, 25 Jul 2021; sport, 03 Sep 2021; BolacomID YouTube channel, 09 Aug 2021; sports, 07 Aug 2021)

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." (liputan6, 25 Sep 2021; cnnindonesia, 24 Jun 2020; bola, 17 Jun 2018; thejakartapost男子棍术, 21 Jul 2010; suarakarya-online男子棍术, 03 Jul 2008)

FAMILY SUPPORT
His son Muhammad Azzam Al Hafidz was born a week after he won a gold medal 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)

His silver medal in the 61kg category at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo made him the first athlete representing Indonesia to have won four medals in total at the Olympic Games. He also claimed bronze at the 2008 and 2012 Games, and silver at the 2016 edition in Rio de Janeiro. (SportsDeskOnline, 26 Sep 2022)