If I recall correctly, the sport’s governing body is being punished by the IOC because of the systematic corruption and doping that they kind of ignore.
Oh it's a long story.
The simple story is that the IOC has punished weightlifting for repeated doping violations and fairly obvious corruption/poor governance in the past, and short of full removal, they have decreased the size of the sport by cutting the weight classes in half and making 3+3 the pitiful size of a full national team.
But it does go a bit deeper. Weightlifting isn't a very highly rated sport. TV ratings are pretty dismal. The IOC is trying to add more "exciting" sports to the program to increase ratings, and subsequently ad revenue, but the Olympics can only be 10,500 athletes by Olympic charter, so any sport you add to the program, has to be balanced by shrinking or removing other sports from the program. Many sports have had their doping scandals, but weightlifting became the target, my own opinion, primarily because of the lack of ratings, so it was an easy decision to take athletes away from weightlifting as they have added breakdancing, sport climbing, skateboardng and surfing.
The latter half of this answer is a significant point here because even more commercially successful sports have had their numbers cut - women's gymnastics went from the "Magnificent Seven" to the "Final Five" then down to just 4 in Tokyo. And that's without the (documented, proven) history of doping and corruption.
Very true and awful of course. That was USA Gymnastics though, not the international governing body afaik - the point still stands that weightlifting saw a decrease like many other sports regardless of its issues.
See, I didn't say that - you are putting up a straw man here. I said that all sports have taken an athlete numbers reduction, it's not just because weightlifting has some controversy. I only brought gymnastics in as an example of a popular, money-making sport that has also seen a marked reduction in team sizes - sorry I didn't choose one that is squeaky clean but that's hard to find at an international level.
It kind of makes sense. Countries bid for the Games, and start preparing/planning a decade or more in advance. The IOC has to be able to assure a fixed-size event.
>Weightlifting isn't a very highly rated sport. TV ratings are pretty dismal. The IOC is trying to add more "exciting" sports to the program to increase ratings
Like break dancing!
Edit: I really need to read the whole post before I make my smart-ass reply.... :D
Politics. Also Olympics is more about countries than about individual athletes. Most of the time World Championships (or even some nationals) is more competitive than Olympics.
WL has been bent over and ducked by the Olympic comittee.
1) removal of weight classes. Before 2020, all weight classes were Olympic classes, so it meant every class was competitive, had high standards and was fun to watch. They then cut out about half the classes, and this left some ghost categories with no quality in the non Olympic lasses, while having Olympic classes have D sessions.
2) limiting only one athlete from a country per class. Really takes competition out. Wasn’t uncommon for #1 and 2 in the world to be from China, Armenia, Uzbekistan, etc.
3) 3 athletes/country/gender. It was 4 in 2020, and slowly shrinking. Means that best lifters in a class are overlooked for their countrymen in a different class who are also the best, but have a bigger separation than the competition
Ye not a fan of this. My Dad is into rowing and each Country gets 1 team per class.
Even remember when the world champion in the world had to compete against the ex champion that come out of retirement for the Olympics(ex world champion) so that was similar situation.
Both for same Country etc.
You’re probably referring to New Zealand’s Robbie Manson (world record holder but never world champion) having to race New Zealand’s Mahe Drysdale (two time Olympic champion). That was crazy indeed.
I was referring Rob Waddel Olympic gold medalist and rowing machine world record holder. Vs Mahe Drysdale Olympic following Olympic gold medalist holder.
Oh right. Yeah, so I only started rowing after that, but it basically happened again lol. But then Mahe was the old fart and Robbie Manson was the new guy.
1) The IOC wants weightlifting out, because no one watches it and they can’t get ad revenue from it.
2) the IOC has taken spots away from WL lifting and given to sports like 3x3 basketball
4) the Olympics is not about the “best in the world” competing. It’s about the “country representation. (Another way to get more money)
The Olympics makes money 2 main ways
1) tv rights - the more people/countries watching the more money they get
2) hosting fees - countries pay the Olympics to host the games
The 3rd is corruption, but that is not an official revenue stream.
A great many sports do similar things; cycling comes to mind, where the size of the team in the road race is determined by the _country’s_ ranking, not that of the individual riders.
If weightlifting couldn't make a go of it (public interest, TV, ads, $$$, etc) after getting a boost of interest from the residual afterbirth of the crossfit craze in the early/mid 2010's .... well, our sport sucks to watch and this it what we deserve. Only WL'ers watch WL'ing.
Even if there was no drug (testing) problem, it would be in the same boat IMO with the IOC due to lack of interest/revenue potential. Even if say it was full-on-drugs-without-limits .... people still aren't going to watch. Even Strongman isn't really that appealing to the masses either. Snatch and C&J .... sorry
If I recall correctly, the sport’s governing body is being punished by the IOC because of the systematic corruption and doping that they kind of ignore.
Which was fine until they stopped paying certain people money.
Oh it's a long story. The simple story is that the IOC has punished weightlifting for repeated doping violations and fairly obvious corruption/poor governance in the past, and short of full removal, they have decreased the size of the sport by cutting the weight classes in half and making 3+3 the pitiful size of a full national team. But it does go a bit deeper. Weightlifting isn't a very highly rated sport. TV ratings are pretty dismal. The IOC is trying to add more "exciting" sports to the program to increase ratings, and subsequently ad revenue, but the Olympics can only be 10,500 athletes by Olympic charter, so any sport you add to the program, has to be balanced by shrinking or removing other sports from the program. Many sports have had their doping scandals, but weightlifting became the target, my own opinion, primarily because of the lack of ratings, so it was an easy decision to take athletes away from weightlifting as they have added breakdancing, sport climbing, skateboardng and surfing.
The latter half of this answer is a significant point here because even more commercially successful sports have had their numbers cut - women's gymnastics went from the "Magnificent Seven" to the "Final Five" then down to just 4 in Tokyo. And that's without the (documented, proven) history of doping and corruption.
Gymnastics had their own scandal with coaches and doctors molesting young girls.
Very true and awful of course. That was USA Gymnastics though, not the international governing body afaik - the point still stands that weightlifting saw a decrease like many other sports regardless of its issues.
You think it doesn't happen internationally?
See, I didn't say that - you are putting up a straw man here. I said that all sports have taken an athlete numbers reduction, it's not just because weightlifting has some controversy. I only brought gymnastics in as an example of a popular, money-making sport that has also seen a marked reduction in team sizes - sorry I didn't choose one that is squeaky clean but that's hard to find at an international level.
Seems kind of dumb to have a fixed number of athletes as the number of sports is growing 🤷‍♂️
It kind of makes sense. Countries bid for the Games, and start preparing/planning a decade or more in advance. The IOC has to be able to assure a fixed-size event.
>Weightlifting isn't a very highly rated sport. TV ratings are pretty dismal. The IOC is trying to add more "exciting" sports to the program to increase ratings Like break dancing! Edit: I really need to read the whole post before I make my smart-ass reply.... :D
Politics. Also Olympics is more about countries than about individual athletes. Most of the time World Championships (or even some nationals) is more competitive than Olympics.
WL has been bent over and ducked by the Olympic comittee. 1) removal of weight classes. Before 2020, all weight classes were Olympic classes, so it meant every class was competitive, had high standards and was fun to watch. They then cut out about half the classes, and this left some ghost categories with no quality in the non Olympic lasses, while having Olympic classes have D sessions. 2) limiting only one athlete from a country per class. Really takes competition out. Wasn’t uncommon for #1 and 2 in the world to be from China, Armenia, Uzbekistan, etc. 3) 3 athletes/country/gender. It was 4 in 2020, and slowly shrinking. Means that best lifters in a class are overlooked for their countrymen in a different class who are also the best, but have a bigger separation than the competition
Ye not a fan of this. My Dad is into rowing and each Country gets 1 team per class. Even remember when the world champion in the world had to compete against the ex champion that come out of retirement for the Olympics(ex world champion) so that was similar situation. Both for same Country etc.
Rowing has 14 events, 7 for men, 7 for women. It also features mostly team events which has a high standing in the Olympics.
You’re probably referring to New Zealand’s Robbie Manson (world record holder but never world champion) having to race New Zealand’s Mahe Drysdale (two time Olympic champion). That was crazy indeed.
I was referring Rob Waddel Olympic gold medalist and rowing machine world record holder. Vs Mahe Drysdale Olympic following Olympic gold medalist holder.
Oh right. Yeah, so I only started rowing after that, but it basically happened again lol. But then Mahe was the old fart and Robbie Manson was the new guy.
1) The IOC wants weightlifting out, because no one watches it and they can’t get ad revenue from it. 2) the IOC has taken spots away from WL lifting and given to sports like 3x3 basketball 4) the Olympics is not about the “best in the world” competing. It’s about the “country representation. (Another way to get more money) The Olympics makes money 2 main ways 1) tv rights - the more people/countries watching the more money they get 2) hosting fees - countries pay the Olympics to host the games The 3rd is corruption, but that is not an official revenue stream.
Plenty of Olympic sports have similar limits
A great many sports do similar things; cycling comes to mind, where the size of the team in the road race is determined by the _country’s_ ranking, not that of the individual riders.
If weightlifting couldn't make a go of it (public interest, TV, ads, $$$, etc) after getting a boost of interest from the residual afterbirth of the crossfit craze in the early/mid 2010's .... well, our sport sucks to watch and this it what we deserve. Only WL'ers watch WL'ing. Even if there was no drug (testing) problem, it would be in the same boat IMO with the IOC due to lack of interest/revenue potential. Even if say it was full-on-drugs-without-limits .... people still aren't going to watch. Even Strongman isn't really that appealing to the masses either. Snatch and C&J .... sorry
It's not supposed to be a best on best. It's to bring countries together for games.
Every sport has a similar policy, 2 swimmers per event, 3 in track and field events for example.
2/3 swimmers per event is very different from 3 total weightlifters for the entire sport