Hoisting a baby grand piano and Missy Elliott: Why weightlifting is the best show in Paris
By Emma Kemp
Lasha Talakhadze is the definition of a super heavyweight. The Georgian’s exact mass is unclear, with various biographies listing it as anything from 168kg up to 183kg. Suffice to say, anything in that range is safe in terms of eligibility to compete in the +102kg category. And, frankly, the particulars do not really matter when you are lifting the equivalent of a baby grand piano over your head.
This bearded man is a unit among units. When he walks onto the platform inside the arena that is hosting the weightlifting at these Olympics, the printed word ‘Georgia’ hangs off the front of his top. And ‘hang’ is the accurate verb to reflect the way his belly bulges over his lifting belt and sways as he walks. He does not give the impression of being a quick mover in any other area of life.
It is a good thing moving quickly is not the aim of the exercise. Talakhadze holds the all-time world records – regardless of weight category – in the snatch (225kg), clean and jerk (267kg) and total (492kg). Since returning from his two-year doping ban in 2015 he has won every world title on offer (the last seven) and Olympic gold at both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020. Spoiler alert: he has just won gold again at Paris 2024.
The aforementioned honours rendered the contest close to a foregone conclusion. And yet Saturday’s evening session was still a spectacle among the most enthralling the Olympics has to offer. Armenian Varazdat Lalayan pushed the Georgian overlord all the way. Twenty-year-old Iraqi Ammar Rubaiawi broke the junior snatch world record, then dropped to his knees to hug the weight plates. Kiwi David Liti was a hit with the crowd, chalking up with attitude to a soundtrack of Missy Elliott’s Work It.
Lasha Talakhadze does the clean and jerk.Credit: Getty Images
The biggest character might have been Eishiro Murakami, a Japanese 29-year-old who goes by ‘The Tank’ and whose hobbies are listed by Olympic organisers as “playing the trumpet, visiting temples and shrines, going to hot springs”. Murakami’s lifts were not even close to those of the big boys but even his comparatively “light” clean-and-jerk best of 220kg tensed the muscles of everyone watching as much as those of the actual athletes. Then the bar crashes to the floor, and the impact reverberates through the makeshift stands just as Eminem’s Lose Yourself restarts.
Watching weightlifting is one of those surreal sensory experiences: a heightened mix of superhuman strength with a Games history dating back to 1896. The past century-and-a-bit has delivered iconic historical moments. And in the current day, as the International Olympic Committee continues to experiment with less orthodox sports such as breaking and skateboarding, the simple act of lifting a bar above one’s head retains an appealingly ancient quality. All brawn and bluster, tossing tin for a living: the most primal interpretation of the “stronger” in the Olympic motto “faster, higher, stronger”.
David Liti is happy with his lift.Credit: AP
Despite that, it risked dying an unceremonious death. Weightlifting was left off the initial program for Los Angeles 2028 due to its significant problems with doping, corruption and governance. No fewer than 34 weightlifters who stood on the podium at the Beijing and London Games have since been disqualified and stripped of their medals, and in 2021 IOC president Thomas Bach labelled it and boxing the “two problem childs [sic] of the Olympic movement”.
Paris 2024 has laid bare the complexities of boxing’s issues, and while weightlifting is nowhere near free of problems, Bach last year lauded the International Weightlifting Federation for adopting “the most strict anti-doping program” in its history. For now at least it has saved its skin, and the demountable stands at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles have filled with ticket holders for the final few days of competition.
On Saturday they included fans wearing fake muscle sleeves (and, being in France, flexing their fake biceps as they lit their cigarettes). There were regulars in civvies, and plenty of passionate flag flyers. And the types of flags told a story in themselves. Egypt, Estonia, Bahrain, Uzbekistan, Ecuador. These are not nations with the financial means to dominate in sports requiring big bucks such as cycling.
Like running, weightlifting is within the reach of developing countries. Eight years ago in Rio, dancing David Katoatau became an unlikely global climate change activist for drawing attention to the threat on his native Kiribati. Three years ago in Tokyo, Hidilyn Diaz became the Philippines’ first Olympic gold medallist. Yesterday in Paris, Ajah Pritchard-Lolo became Vanuatu’s first female Olympic weightlifter.
The sport, aside from the doping element, has an egalitarian feel; that the human body is both the athletes’ strength and its weakness. That was especially the case for Egypt’s Abdelrahman El Sayed, who finished seventh after breaking his back.
“I’m calling this ‘back from death’,” he said, holding up his phone to display an X-ray image. “Two months ago I cannot walk and I start under zero. And now I’m happy I’m here. Number seven – not bad.”
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