HISTORY OF WEIGHT TRAINING

As a basic athletic activity and a natural means to measure strength and power, the lifting of weights was present in both the ancient Egyptian and Greek societies. Boosting its international importance chiefly in the 19th Century, weightlifting was among those few sports (alongside athletics, swimming, gymnastics, fencing, wrestling, shooting and cycling) which featured already on the programme of the first Modern Olympic Games, in 1896, Athens. The first World Championships in this sport, however, had been staged five years earlier: on 28th March 1891, in London, with 7 athletes representing 6 countries.

Weightlifting is thus the only sport whose history in world-wide competitions spans across three centuries: from 1891 through the 20th Century until our days, in 2001.

The power-relations have undergone major changes over the past decades. At the beginning of the century, Austria, Germany and France used to be the most successful nations. Later on, Egypt, then the United States of America reigned. In the 1950s and the following three decades the Soviet Union's weightlifters played the protagonists' role - with Bulgaria becoming a main challenger. Since the mid-'90s, however, Turkey, Greece and China have catapulted to the lead. The most recent word power in weightlifting is Greece among the men. In the women's field, China has been dominant since the very beginning, with other Asian countries emerging as strong contenders to the champion titles. On the overall, however, Europe is the most powerful continent in competitions of both genders.