Weightlifting

In weightlifting the athlete lifts in two movements: in the snatch the bar goes overhead in one motion, in the clean and jerk it is first brought to the shoulders and then driven overhead. Each lift allows three attempts, and the total of the two best results decides the winner.

History

Weightlifting was on the programme of the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) dates from 1905, and women have competed at the Olympics since Sydney 2000. In recent years strict anti-doping controls have reshaped the sport: some old results have been annulled after retesting and the weight classes have been changed.

Major competitions

The Olympic Games, the World Championships, the European and Asian Championships and the Islamic Solidarity Games.

Weightlifting in the Turkic world

Türkiye has produced the sport's brightest stars: Naim Süleymanoğlu won three Olympic titles in 1988, 1992 and 1996 and was one of the rare athletes to lift three times his own body weight. Halil Mutlu also won three Olympic golds, in 1996, 2000 and 2004, and Nurcan Taylan became Türkiye's first female Olympic champion in Athens in 2004.

In Uzbekistan, Ruslan Nurudinov won Olympic gold at Rio 2016 and Akbar Djuraev at Tokyo 2020. Turkmenistan's Polina Guryeva won silver in Tokyo, her country's first ever Olympic medal. Hungary's Imre Földi took Olympic gold in Munich in 1972, and Kazakhstan is another strong weightlifting school.

Famous Turkic weightlifters

Naim Süleymanoğlu, Halil Mutlu, Nurcan Taylan, Ruslan Nurudinov, Akbar Djuraev, Polina Guryeva and Imre Földi.