Talakhadze’s long-term target is far loftier: to become the first man in history to win more than two Olympic gold medals in the heaviest weight category.

“I feel deep inside that weightlifting is in my genes, and I am looking forward to achieving more,” he said. 

“I know that nobody has won three gold medals in super-heavyweights and that is not my aim – I want four.

“The heavier lifters have more stability, we don’t have to worry about making the weight and that gives us an advantage over the lower categories, so I can keep training and competing for many years.”

The 23-year-old Georgian, who weighed in at 151kg, had said after winning in Rio with a record total of 473kg.

He kept his word by becoming the first Olympic champion to return to competition in an age-group event, and was the only lifter to beat Junior or Under-23 records in Eilat. 

He set a new mark in the snatch with 205kg in the snatch, then bettered by 5kg the 435kg record total set by Russia’s Ruslan Albegov.

“I am always proud to win more gold medals for myself and for my country,” said Talakhadze, who has treated himself to three tattoos to celebrate his triumphs.

Talakhadze is likely to be named Georgia’s sportsman of the year next month, and has already been presented with the Order of Excellence by his nation’s President, Giorgi Margvelashvili.

His phone gave up shortly after the Olympics because he was bombarded with so many messages, he is stopped in the street by children, and people go to watch him training.

“Since the Olympics there has been a big increase in the popularity of weightlifting, and the number of people doing it,” he said. 

“The recent national championships had a much higher entry than usual.”

An estimated two million of Georgia’s 4.7m population watched the broadcast from Rio and in his home town of Sachkhere a giant screen was erected in the square, where thousands saw his late-night win.

Looking ahead to next year, Talakhadze said he would target the European and World Championships, in April and November.

“The strategy for 2017 is not to rush, to win when I compete, to gradually improve my power, my technique," the Georgian said. 

"If the competition demands a big weight close to a record, I will go for it.”

With a one-year ban hanging over nine nations who had multiple doping offences in the retesting of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, the IWF World Championships next year could be shorn of many of Talakhadze’s top rivals.

Talakhadze started after everybody else had finished in both the snatch and clean & jerk. 

The overall silver medal went to Russia’s Antoniy Savchuk and the bronze to Ukraine’s Leonid Kubyshkovskyi, 42kg and 48kg behind.

Another Olympic medallist, the 105kg runner-up Simon Martirosyan, from Armenia, moved up a weight to win the Junior super-heavyweight gold with a total of 400kg.

Serbia’s Tamas Kajdoci won the clean & jerk gold with his final lift of 225kg and with 3kg more he would have taken the overall gold. 

Kajdoci, who outweighed Martyrosyan by 36kg, finished well clear of bronze medallist Illia Lebedzeu, of Belarus.

There were celebrations for a lifter at the other end of the super-heavyweight fame scale, too. 

Enzo Kuworge of the Netherlands, the youngest competitor of the week who was 15 at the end of August, broke the European Under-15 super-heavyweight (+94kg) clean & jerk record when he made 161kg in the Junior +105kg class.

That was the short-term target for Kuworge, who stayed up late at home in Nijmegen to watch Talakhadze win Olympic gold and was proud to compete on the same day as the world record holder.

Enzo’s father is Ghanaian, his mother Dutch, and his long-term ambition is to compete at Tokyo 2020 and become the first Dutch Olympic weightlifter since 1968, when Piet van der Kruk qualified in shot put and weightlifting and opted for the latter.

There are only nine youth weightlifters in the whole of the Netherlands, only four super-heavyweights at any age, no coaching qualifications and no properly established governing body for a sport that has no funding.

But Enzo likes the challenge and trains 10 times a week under coach Pierre Verkroost, who said, “He came to the gym aged eight or nine and I saw straight away that he is a very intelligent sportsman. Even at that age he didn’t want to play, he wanted instruction, and he gets better and better.

“His medal in the Under-15s three months ago was historic, only the second ever for the Netherlands – and the first was in a contest that had only three entrants.”

The Junior 105kg title went to Spain’s Marcos Ruiz, who held off the challenge of two Georgians in second and third, Dato Khetsuriani and Girorgi Chkheidze.

The Under-23 champion at 105kg was Vasil Gospodinov of Bulgaria, who made his last attempt at 216kg to win on bodyweight from Russia’s Marchel Guydya, who made all six lifts and also totalled 384kg. The bronze went to Ukraine’s Roman Vaslevskyi.