When Colombian weightlifter Luis Javier Mosquera finished lifting at the 2024 Olympics, he celebrated his final clean & jerk with a backflip on stage.
Mosquera didn’t win a medal in the Men’s 73KG weightlifting event in Paris on Aug. 8; he placed fifth and missed the podium for the first time (Mosquera won bronze in 2016 and silver in 2020) in his Olympic career. So what the heck was he celebrating?
If you were asked to name some of the most acrobatic athletes at the Olympic Games, weightlifters probably wouldn’t be at the front of your mind. Yet the Olympic lifting pros who qualify for and make it to the Games have serious hops, and they aren’t afraid to show off how explosive they are.
As it turns out, the strength weightlifters need to excel in the sport makes them pretty springy, too. So we asked one of the Paris medalists why weightlifters love doing backflips so much.
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Why Weightlifters Love Doing Backflips
Mosquera may not have made it to the 73-kilogram podium, but his Bulgarian competitor Bozhidar Andreev sure did. He took the stage in Paris hot off a win at the 2024 European Championships in front of a home crowd in Sofia. Andreev knows how to work a crowd and often incorporates backflips into his post-lifting celebratory routine.
“It’s something I like to do when I perform well,” Andreev told BarBend correspondent Brian Oliver through an interpreter. “I’ve always done it.”
Andreev’s reasoning is almost frustratingly straightforward, but it makes sense. Success on the weightlifting stage takes speed, strength, and plenty of grit. Athletes celebrate their achievements in all sorts of ways; some shout or pump their fists, others take a polite bow. Some do backflips.
Andreev would be the only 73KG weightlifter to end with a perfect, six-lift-six-make performance, a commendable standard given the fiery climate in his division.
“Every kilogram was carefully measured,” Andreev told Bulgarian reporters shortly after accepting his medal. “Achieving six successful attempts was no accident.”
Given his calculated, medal-winning performance, we were surprised to see Andreev depart the South Paris Arena stage by solemnly blowing kisses to the audience instead of hitting his signature backflip. Andreev has announced he won’t continue competing in weightlifting and plans to take a “significant break.”
Andreev and Mosquera aren’t the only famous flippers seen on weightlifting’s biggest stages. Venezuela’s Julio Mayora, who also lifted in the 73KG event in Paris, famously busted the move on the Tokyo lifting platform.
Great Britain’s super-heavy women’s weightlifter, Emily Campbell, performed a cartwheel on the final day of weightlifting in Paris to celebrate her bronze medal in the Women’s +81KG.
The same world-class leg strength that enables weightlifters to catapult barbells high overhead also gives them incredible jumping skills. In fact, many medal-winning Olympic lifters, such as Tokyo 2020 Team USA silver medalist Kate Vibert, have backgrounds in gymnastics that they then apply to the barbell.
Weightlifters are hardly muscle-bound brutes. A 2022 systematic review comparing weightlifting training to traditional weight-lifting concluded, “[weightlifting] may confer additional benefits above that of traditional resistance training, resulting in greater improvements in jumping performance.” (1)
In the moments before Mosquera attempted his last lift — a 189-kilogram clean & jerk, which would have matched bronze medalist Andreev — Mosquera hyped himself up with shouts of “Duro, duro!” He wasn’t successful.
Yet Mosquera drew a big round of applause from the crowd when he very nonchalantly busted out a pristine backflip before descending the stage for the last time. Weightlifters bristle with explosive power, and they love showing it off.
Mosquera was just happy to be there.
More Weightlifting From the 2024 Olympics
Is Mihaela Cambei Weightlifting’s Next Superstar?
Weightlifting Rule Leaves Super-Heavy Athletes Breathless at 2024 Olympics
Solfrid Koanda Worked as an Electrician 3 Years Before She Won the 2024 Olympics
References
Morris SJ, Oliver JL, Pedley JS, Haff GG, Lloyd RS. Comparison of Weightlifting, Traditional Resistance Training and Plyometrics on Strength, Power and Speed: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. Sports Med. 2022 Jul;52(7):1533-1554. doi: 10.1007/s40279-021-01627-2. Epub 2022 Jan 13. PMID: 35025093; PMCID: PMC9213388.
Featured Image: PanAm Sports Organization
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