The 2024 Olympics may be in the rearview, but weightlifting fanatics like us are still doing post-game reviews. The summer Games in Paris may have been the smallest Olympic-level weightlifting event in years, but the competition itself was no less exciting.
Paris hosted 122 weightlifters across 10 weight class events, down from 196 performers in 14 events three years prior in Tokyo.
Now that the chalk has settled and the medalists awarded, we can begin to run the numbers on weightlifting at the Olympics this year.
Weightlifting at the 2024 Olympics, by the Numbers
Our friends at Weightlifting House discussed some of the more interesting statistics from the 2024 Olympics on YouTube on Sep. 6, 2024. The numbers themselves were crunched by the good people over at IronWise, a weightlifting athlete and event directory. Let’s dig in.
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Best Athletes
Karlos Nasar (BUL) and Luo Shifang (CHN) were ranked as the best men’s and women’s weightlifters at the 2024 Olympics by Sinclair score.
The Sinclair coefficient is a formula which permits comparison of athletes in different weight classes and of different genders. “It speaks to the depth of talent in their classes,” said House founder Seb Ostrowicz.
The Men’s 89-kilogram and Women’s 59-kilogram categories were among the most competitive divisions of the Paris qualification period.
Heaviest Lifts
Gor Minasyan (BRN) and Li Wenwen (CHN), both super-heavy athletes, had the heaviest snatches in Paris: 216 kilograms (476.1 pounds) and 136 kilograms (299.8 pounds).
Lasha Talakhadze (GEO) and Li had the heaviest clean & jerks, at 255 kilograms (562.1 pounds) and (381.4 pounds).
While the heaviest lifts at any weightlifting meet are almost always achieved by the super-heavyweights, the best results in Paris fall short of the existing world records.
Talakhadze and Li, respectively, hold all three of the men’s and women’s weightlifting world records, though neither of them approached their own bests in the South Paris Arena.
Median Athlete Age
Male weightlifters in Paris had a median age of 26.5 years, while the women’s median clocked in at 25.9 years old.
“If you’re in your 30s like me, [the Olympics] probably aren’t happening,” joked Ostrowicz. While there are exceptions — super-heavy Czech weightlifter Kamil Kucera was the oldest man to perform in Paris at 39 — many of the world’s best weightlifters are in their early to mid 20s.
According to a report issued by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, the average age of Olympic athletes is trending upward over time.
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Representation by Country
Team China was the only contingent to field a full six-athlete roster in Paris.
Countries with a full three-man team included China, Korea, Armenia, Bulgaria, and Georgia.
The countries which qualified three women were the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, the United States, Egypt, China, Ecuador, and Chinese Taipei.
“There are very different countries at play here,” Ostrowicz remarked. “You’ve still got that Soviet-era stronghold on the men’s side,” he said, noting the contrast between the geographic diversity in women’s weightlifting.
Successful Lifts by Percentage
64.71% of snatch attempts were successful on the men’s side; women lifted 64.94% of their snatches.
For the clean & jerk, men and women were successful 49.67% and 53.45% of the time, respectively.
Only 19.15% of third-attempt clean & jerks were successful; a drastically low percentage. Ostrowicz theorized that, at the Games, athletes may play it safe during the snatch portion and go for medals during the clean & jerks by taking large, risky attempts.
Strength-to-Weight Ratios
Li Fabin of China had the best strength-to-weight ratio in the snatch; 2.34 times his own body weight of 61 kilograms.
Mihaela Cambei of Romania snatched 1.9 times her body weight of 49 kilograms.
Hou Zhihui of China clean & jerked 2.39 times her body weight of 49 kilograms, while Team USA’s Hampton Morris clean & jerked 2.82 times his body weight of 61 kilograms.
Strength-to-weight ratio decreases as athletes gain body weight. The Women’s 49s and Men’s 61s were the lightest divisions showcased in Paris.
More Weightlifting News
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