The History Of Olympic Weightlifting

In previous articles I have talked about some of the things that I feel the Crossfit revolution has brought to the table in the strength sports world. A marked rise in the availability of equipment, at a variety of prices. More opportunities for access to the best minds and coaches in the world. Most important is the rekindling of fascination with the classic strength sports like Olympic Weightlifting. There is a new wave of intense interest in Weightlifting crossing the United States. Much attention is being paid to how the US is currently performing on the world stage. Much is being said about the inability of America to win World Championships and Olympic Gold. Recently I had the opportunity to talk to 2012 US Olympic team member

Holley Mangold, prior to the IWF Worlds. She was generous with her thoughts on American weightlifting, and sharing her perspective as one the top US women.

A bit of background.

It seems hard to Imagine at this point in time that prior to 1960 the United States was a power in weightlifting. The legendary Paul Anderson bested Humberto Selvetti in Melbourne Australia to bring the US a gold in the men's heavyweight division. After a decision by the Olympic Committee that Anderson had violated his amateur status he was held out from competing in the 1960 Olympic Games. Soviet Yury Vlasov won Gold, breaking Anderson’s records set in 1956. Not to be outdone Anderson lifted Vlasov’s contest weight for a triple, removing any doubt that he could easily have won the Rome Games. But, that is not all. The US men claimed 13 Weightlifting Gold Medals between 1948 and 1960, across all weight classes . And, between 1936 and 1964 they racked up 32 total Olympic medals. The Americans dominated the Heavyweight division between ‘48 and ‘56, with John Davis repeating as Gold Winner in ‘48 and ‘52. Those years Norbert Schemansky and James Bradford, respectively, took home the Silver Medal as well. Tommy Kono, another legend of the sport, medaled in three different weight classes in successive Olympics, with Lightweight Gold in ‘52, Light Heavy Gold in ‘56, and Middleweight Silver in

‘60.

Since 1960? A mere five ,men’s Medals and two women’s Medals. Women have only competed in weightlifting at the Olympics since 2000 in Sydney where Terra Nott won the first women’s Gold in the Flyweight division.

So what happened after 1960 that has led to America being absent from the podium at the Olympics? There are many factors that have taken the US out of the Olympic equation for fifty five years, of varying levels of controversy. Many of the critics of American weightlifting are products of one of the major factors to the demise of weightlifting. We all Just love football. Mangold, herself a former football player, adds.

“I don't think we could ever have the kind of pull that football can have.
I just don't ever see that happening.”

The first formal rules for college football were codified by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia Universities, and regular contest of games between those school began around 1870.

Before that several one-off contests had been held between schools. The game spread from the schools and became popular with private athletic clubs. By 1892 we have the first recorded instances of a player making a considerable amount of money by the standard of the time, and the birth of professional football players. William “Pudge” Heffelfinger was paid $500 to play a single game between the Allegheny Athletic Association and the Pittsburgh Athletic Club. In 1920 the first professional football league was formed, and under the direction of Jim Thorpe would solidify into the National Football League in 1921. By 1950 120 colleges and universities had teams that comprised the Associated Press Poll. The modern limit for a college roster is 77 players with more for practice squads, generally totalling around 120 total players. But, even if we take a more conservative estimate of 1950s rosters and say 70-75, all eligible to play we still get close to 8,500 athletes playing football at the college level. Unlike today where the Olympic lifts are staples of the football players training, the inclusion of weight training of any kind in football did not begin until 1969 with pioneers like Boyd Epley at the University of Nebraska and Richard Sorin at the University of South Carolina. Mangold

Continues.

“Think of all the kids trying to be professional football players or baseball players or professional gymnasts...and once they realize they haven't made it in that sport. How cool would it be if they were like-”you know what, I was pretty good at weightlifting, I want to go back to that””

However, just a decade before the American medal drought began nearly 10,000 potential athletes would have been eliminated from the talent pool for weightlifting by football. Coupled with the relative lack of availability of weightlifting equipment the potential next generation of American weightlifting champions was destroyed by the time Kono, Davis, and Anderson were racking up Golds. The flourish of the professional sports would continue to cut into the talent pool for weightlifting. As players developed the potential to make money in sports such as football and baseball the appeal of an amateur sport, such as weightlifting, greatly diminished in the inflationary American economy post World War II. Amateurism is enduring concept in sports, but the fact remains that reaching the top levels of any sport takes some money. 1965 also brought a new wrinkle. The professional bodybuilder and the seeds for the fitness industry.

Sometimes a hero comes along and elevates a thing beyond its original potential. In 1970 Arnold Schwarzenegger would rapidly start gaining momentum toward being that hero. However, the creation of the Mr Olympia in 1965 gave him the stage and spotlight. The history of bodybuilding and the resultant fitness boom of the late seventies and eighties is copiously documented elsewhere. However, by the release of Pumping Iron in 1977 Arnold brought bodybuilding into the mainstream. Combined with the look Sylvester Stallone began to develop in 1976 with the release of Rocky and three years later with Rocky II and the public was primed to fall in deep with release of Conan: The Barbarian in 1980. Over the course of the decade the American public had been slowly being directed to an emphasis on the aesthetic possibilities of the body. Now volume training and muscle isolation, balance, and shape became the focus of millions of young men and women in the gym. The movements of weightlifting became irrelevant in the minds of those training. During a time when the talent pool for the sport could have been rebuilding another setback came along to denude the population again.

By contrast the competition from the East flourished under the system of state sponsored “full time athletes” their unwavering devotion to strength. Before the 1970’s the Olympic Committee took the black and white approach on the topic of professionalism. The Eastern Bloc countries used the state sponsored athlete as a loophole in the standards of professionalism. Their athletes we not paid in the sense of an income, rather they were provided for so that they could focus on training for the games. Housing, meals, medical care, “medical care” were all taken care of in return for their service to the state. Americans hold true to this day to a more pure standard of the amateur athlete. American athlete must provide for themselves, have family that can provide for them, or have sponsors offer assistance. Companies are now allowed to give money to athletes to help them work toward competition. The USAW even keeps a fund that is distributed to its athletes in the form of stipends. It cannot be debated that America has continued to thrive under this system in many sports. However, according to Mangold there are still issue deep in the system that may cause rifts between the lifters and the body in place to support them.

“USA Weightlifting has more money now than we have had in possibly the last ten years. They decided to have Juniors receive stipends. They have a different percentage they have to hit to make a stipend. But, unfortunately, what that does is you’re just giving this kid a bunch of money. And, the more they get into the sport the less they are going to make. It's so backwards, that's not the way it is supposed to be. You should never be paying your Juniors more than you are paying your Seniors. There was a time right after I made the Olympic team that my stipend got cut and given to Juniors….It does not make sense to me to be paying Juniors. It makes sense to support Juniors by paying for fully funded Junior teams, fully funded trips out to the Training Center, I think that would be a good idea. What people tend to not think about is that Juniors fizzle out alot. It’s a hot topic right now.”

Until the reinvigoration of weightlifting brought on by the current fitness climate there was simply not that much interest to improve in the sport outside of a small community. According to the results sheets for the 2010 USAW American Open only 218 athletes competed. By 2014 the women’s division alone totalled 274 athletes with 534 men in addition. That is no doubt explosive growth. However, that is in a period 50 years after beginning of the American medal drought. If you are to consider a weightlifter’s peak period of their career to last even five years, that is ten generations of a US team that has come and gone with very little care or concern from the Country. Despite the outrage at our weightlifting history it is to be noted that until merely a year or two ago extremely few people in the United States cared about weightlifting. However, they care now. And, that is a welcome thing.

Perhaps the final nail in the US weightlifting coffin, and the one that many point to, is a delicate subject. Probably the most revered and successful coach in the US in these last 50 years, Glenn Pendlay, has the best insight into the issue of performance enhancing drugs in the sport. Coach Pendlay has gotten to work with the best from all over the globe. He had this to say in a post on Reddit.com and it sums up the point so succinclty it would be folly to try to rephrase it.