IWF acknowledges IOC decision on LA 2028 quotas
The IWF acknowledged the recent decision of the IOC Executive Board concerning the allocation of athletes and event quotas for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles (USA). Weightlifting will remain with a quota of 120 athletes (60 men and 60 women), competing in 10 bodyweight categories (five for men, five for women).
While the International Weightlifting Federation had requested an increase of the existing bodyweight categories (from five to seven, for both men and women) with a minimal impact on the final number of athletes (from the present 120, to 126), our International Federation understands that within the context of keeping the 10’500-athlete overall quota (excluding the five sports proposed by the LA28 OCOG), there wasn’t a wide available margin for the sport of Weightlifting.
The IWF proposal was mainly motivated by the concerns expressed by the IWF Athletes Commission regarding the health, safety, and wellbeing of our lifters who had to adjust to a five-category format, with the inherent important gaps of weight between each category.
The IOC decision only strengthens IWF’s strong commitment and effort in improving the exposure and importance of our Sport in future editions of the Olympic Games. Weightlifting was one of the nine founding sports in the initial edition of the Olympics, in 1896 in Athens (GRE). Since then, we continue working very hard to enhance the added-value of Weightlifting in the Olympic programme.
Moreover, the structural, positive changes undertaken by the IWF in recent years – namely in the areas of anti-doping and good governance – make the entire Weightlifting family confident in an improved Olympic presence of our Sport from the 2032 edition onwards.
Following this decision and the implementation of new weightlifting bodyweight categories from June 1, 2025, the IWF will come forward to the IOC with a proposal concerning which ten categories (five for men, five for women) should be considered in the LA 2028 Olympic programme.
The full event programme for the LA2028 Olympic Games can be found here
