IWF120y/115 – 1913: Bodyweight categories are created
Weightlifting was one of the founding sports of the first edition of the modern Olympic Games, in 1896, but the competition format was quite different then, namely concerning the concept (inexistent) of ‘bodyweight categories’. In 1904, the second time our sport was featured in the Games, lifters were competing without taking into account any differences in their body morphology. Things changed in 1913: at the Congress in Berlin, five bodyweight categories were proposed and approved – Featherweight (60kg), Lightweight (67.5kg), Light-middleweight (75kg), Heavy-middleweight (82.5kg) and Heavyweight (+82.5kg). The 1920 Olympics in Antwerp are already contested using these categories, which will remain in place (except the Heavyweight) until the… 1992 Games in Barcelona! Otherwise, for the 1948 Olympic rendezvous, a sixth category is introduced – Bantamweight (56kg) – and the 1950 Congress approves a Middle-Heavyweight category of 90kg, thus altering the Heavyweight one to +90kg. Things remained stable until 1968, but in Munich 1972, two new categories were on the programme: Flyweight (52kg) and Super-Heavyweight (+110kg, leading to a change in the Heavyweight one, raised to 110kg). For the Moscow 1980 Games, a 10th category is created – First-Heavyweight (100kg), between the Middle-Heavyweight (90kg) and Heavyweight (100kg). This status quo was used until the Barcelona Games, but in Atlanta 1996 (illustrative photo), overall adjustments in all categories were made, and from 2000 until 2016, eight Olympic categories were set in stone (seven, for the women’s competition). Presently, the IWF has eight bodyweight categories for both men and women, and as in Paris 2024, the 2028 edition of the Games in Los Angeles will include five bodyweight categories for both the men’s and women’s events.
