Weightlifting

Weightlifting is an Olympic sport where athletes compete to see who can lift the heaviest weights (in the form of a metal bar with heavy weights on each end). Both men and women compete, and there are several weight divisions for each gender.

Olympic weightlifting has two divisions:

• Snatch, where the bar must be lifted above the head in one continuous motion.
• Clean and jerk, where the bar is first lifted to just beneath the chin, and then lifted above the head after a short pause.

Participants compete in both disciplines (with the weights being increased in a similar way to the raising of the bar in a high jump competition), and add their best scores in each. The man or woman with the highest combined total is the winner.

Countries who usually perform well in weightlifting include China and many former Soviet states.