Weightlifting at the Summer Olympics

Weightlifting has been contested at every Summer Olympic Games since the 1920 Summer Olympics, in Antwerp, Belgium, as well as twice before then. It debuted at the 1896 Summer Olympics, in Athens, Greece, and was also an event at the 1904 Games.

Summary

Events

Men's events

In the early Games, all lifters competed in the same events, regardless of their individual body weights.

1896

• One hand lift
• Two hand lift

1904

• Two hand lift
• All-around dumbbell

When the sport returned to the Olympic Games in 1920, the competition was structured as a set of weight classes. The number of classes and weight limits for each class have changed several times, as shown in the following table.

Women's events

Women's weightlifting made its Olympic debut at the 2000 Games in Sydney, with seven weight classes.

Medal table

Sources:

As of the 2020 Summer Olympics and Court of Arbitration for Sport decision of March 2022 to disqualify a gold medalist in the weightlifting men's 77kg event at the 2016 Summer Olympics (medals in this event have not yet been reallocated as of May 2023).

Nations

Multiple medalists

The table shows those who have won at least 2 gold medals. Boldface denotes active weightlifters and highest medal count among all weightlifters (including these who not included in these tables) per type.

See also

• List of Olympic medalists in weightlifting
• List of Olympic records in weightlifting
• List of Olympic venues in weightlifting
• World Weightlifting Championships
• Powerlifting at the Summer Paralympics
• Weightlifting at the 1906 Intercalated Games

References