Florina Hulpan, who posted a career-best snatch of 100 kilograms at Rio 2016 only to miss the clean and jerk with an elbow strain, took the junior 63kg title and ensured that Romania became the first nation to win two golds here.

In the Under-23 contest at the same weight Kseniia Maksimova, of Russia, returned to international competition after dislocating her elbow at the World Championships in Houston 13 months ago, where she had been in fifth place after a snatch of 105kg.

"It took me seven months to recover and this was my first international competition since then," said Maksimova, 21, who won with two lifts to spare and finished with an impressive total of 231kg.

"It is still not perfect and that’s why I was a little nervous in the snatch."

Maksimova missed one of her snatch attempts and retired after her second clean and jerk, already 9kg clear of second-placed Loredana Toma of Romania, the snatch winner. 

Ukraine’s Olena Kokhanenko was third a further 17kg behind.

Maksimova had happy memories of Eilat, as her first international success was at the Israeli resort in 2009, when she won the European Youth Championship at 48kg.

Hulpan, 19, usually competes at 69kg nowadays and had a career-best total of 204kg at this lighter category. 

She has a best of 227kg at 69kg and is targeting the European senior title in Croatia in April.

Russia won their second Under-23 gold medal of the day, and their third gold of the week, when Victor Getts took the 77kg crown in front of his team-mate Razmik Unanian, with Poland’s bespectacled Daniel Bajer third.

Getts had to make his first clean and jerk twice when his lift was overruled on a technicality. 

The total weight of his first snatch and first clean and jerk was 323kg, which was too far below his entry total of 345kg. 

The first two attempts must be within 20kg of the entry total, so he was sent back by the jury to start at 180kg, and made the lift easily, eventually winning by 11kg on total, with 338kg.

Getts would have been a genuine medal contender at the Rio Olympics but for Russia’s ban. 

Asked if he was targeting the next Olympics in 2020 he said: "The platform will decide. 

"I don’t want to say anything about this year’s Olympics because it was not my fault and not the fault of the Federation."

His next target is the 2017 European seniors title but with Russia due to be banned for a year because they had so many positives in the International Olympic Committee retests of 2008 and 2012 samples, he may be denied that opportunity too.