| | Event type
Featherweight (≤60 kilograms), Men
| Date | 20 July 1976 — 14:30-19:00 | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Olympic | |
| Location | Aréna Saint-Michel, Montréal, Québec | |
| Participants | 17 from 14 countries | |
| Format | Total of best lifts in snatch and clean & jerk determined placement. Ties broken by lightest bodyweight. | |
At the last two World Championships, Bulgarian Georgi Todorov had won the title, followed by Soviet Nikolay Kolesnikov. Todorov also came to Montréal as the world record holder and was favored, but Kolesnikov outlifted him by 2.5 kg in both the snatch and clean & jerk to equal the world record with a total of 285.0 kg, and win the gold medal. Kolesnikov was then allowed a fourth attempt in the clean & jerk and set a world record of 161.5 kg. The bronze medal went to Japan’s Kazumasa Hirai, the 1974 Asian Games champion.
| Pos | Competitor(s) | NOC | K | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nikolay Kolesnikov |  URS | 285.0 | Gold | ||
| 2 | Georgi Todorov |  BUL | 280.0 | Silver | ||
| 3 | Kazumasa Hirai |  JPN | 275.0 | Bronze | ||
| 4 | Takashi Saito | JPN | 262.5 | |||
| 5 | Eduward Weitz |  ISR | 262.5 | |||
| 6 | Davoud Maleki |  IRI | 260.0 | |||
| 7 | Pedro Fuentes |  CUB | 257.5 | |||
| 8 | Om Jong-Guk |  PRK | 255.0 | |||
| 9 | Andrés Santoyo |  MEX | 250.0 | |||
| 10 | Peppino Tanti |  ITA | 247.5 | |||
| 11 | Dominique Bidard |  FRA | 245.0 | |||
| 12 | Chua Koon Siong |  SGP | 230.0 | |||
| 13 | Victor Daniels |  GBR | 227.5 | |||
| Antoni Pawlak |  POL | 120.0 | ||||
| Todor Todorov | BUL | – | ||||
| Jan Łostowski | POL | – | ||||
| Arne Norrback |  SWE | – | 1 |