Weightlifting
Weightlifting has been an Olympic sport since the first modern games in Athens in 1896[1]. 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[2].
The world record for weightlifting in the men's super-heavyweight division is 472kg (over 1000lb), set at the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000[3]. This is about as heavy as two fully-grown male lions[4].
Countries who usually perform well in weightlifting include China and many Eastern European and former Soviet states.