Weightlifting

In various forms, weightlifting has been popular for centuries. Strongmen of all types often performed at various fairs in the Middle Ages. In the 19th century, professional strongmen often toured with carnivals or vaudeville shows. However, weightlifting as a sport became organized only in the late 19th century.

The governing body for the sport is the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), which had 183 full members, 7 associated members, and 5 provisional members as of 2024.

The first governing body was founded on 10 June 1905, in Duisburg, as the Amateur Athleten Weltunion, with four founding members: Denmark, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. However, this organization did not last long. Meetings during the 1912 Olympics ended in a congress, held on 9 June 1913 in Berlin, where the Internationaler Weltverband für Schwerathletik was founded, with nine members: Austria, Bohemia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Russia, and Sweden. This organization was renamed to Internationaler Kraftsportverband in 1920, but it disappeared in 1923. All these organizations did not only govern weightlifting, but also boxing, tug-of-war, weight throwing, and wrestling.

The current federation was founded on 23 August 1920, during the Antwerpen Olympics, as the Fédération Internationale Haltérophile (FIH), and it was the first only responsible for weightlifting. It was renamed to Fédération Internationale Haltérophile et Culturiste (FIHC) in 1950, when bodybuilding was added, but this was again deleted in 1968, and the name became Fédération Haltérophile Internationale (FHI). The current name was adopted in 1972.

Weightlifting has been on the programme of all the Olympic Games, except in the years of 1900, 1908, and 1912. Originally, there were no weight classes, only an open competition. In 1896 and 1906, there were also one-handed lifts. The programme has varied little, except for the addition of more and more weight classes, until recent years, when the number of classes for men has decreased. Women made their Olympic début in weightlifting at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, with seven weight classes. Beginning in 1993, the weight classes in international weightlifting have been changed several times, with a completely new set of world records. This is to eliminate the possibility of earlier records having been set by drug users prior to stricter drug controls.

Beginning in 1928, the three Olympic lifts were standardized as the military press, the snatch, and the clean & jerk. Because of difficulties judging the press, and because there was some concern that the lift was biomechanically dangerous to lifters’ backs, it was eliminated from international competition after the 1972 Olympics. Today, lifters compete only in the snatch and in the clean & jerk at the Olympics.

Weightlifting was dominated by the Soviet Union after its entry to the Olympics in 1952. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bulgaria challenged that dominance, although a number of its lifters ran afoul of drug testing, notably in 1992. The United States was once also a weightlifting power. In recent Games, China has emerged as a strong nation in the sport, and, with 67 medals and 43 Olympic titles as of 2024, has already surpassed the Soviet Union in medal total and gold medal count.

However, the only five lifters to have won three Olympic golds all come from countries not mentioned above: Halil Mutlu and Naim Süleymanoğlu from Türkiye; Lasha Talakhadze from Georgia; Pyrros Dimas from Greece; and Georgian-born Akakios Kakiasvili, with two golds representing Greece, after winning his first gold for the Unified Team in 1992. There are also five male weightlifters with four medals won at the Olympics, but, of these, only one man has won more than one gold, Pyrros Dimas.

In the women’s competition, Chen Yanqing, Hou Zhihui, and Li Wenwen (all from China), Hsu Shu-Ching (TPE), and Rim Jong-Sim (PRK) have all won two gold medals. Four other female weightlifters – Jang Mi-Ran (KOR), Lydia Valentín (ESP), Kuo Hsing-Chun (TPE), and Raema Lisa Rumbewas (INA) – have won a total of three medals at the Olympic Games.