rules to play weightlifting

The rules used in Olympic Weightlifting competition are the standard international rules set out by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) and approved by the Olympic administration.
There are many rules to follow in Olympic Weightlifting, but most of the are not important to you, the viewer at home. Ive listed below the main rules that you will find helpful to know when watching the Olympics. For the athlete interested in competitive weightlifting, Ive included useful links where more specific information can be found. However, just as I recommend for competitive bodybuilding, the hiring of a coach for being successful at competition is invaluable; even more in this sport where expert execution of the lift is a must.

Athletes in the sport are divided in several weight classes and placing is based on the total weight lifted on the two main lifts.At the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, men competed in eight bodyweight categories: up to 56kg, 62kg, 69kg, 77kg, 85kg, 94kg, 105kg and +105kg. Women participated in seven categories: up to 48kg, 53kg, 58kg, 63kg, 69kg, 75kg, and +75kg. The programme of events for the 2008 Beijing Games is the same.Only two weightlifters per country are allowed to compete in each weight class.
If the number of entries for a weight class is too big (over 15 entries, for instance) then it can be split into a couple of groups; Groups A and B with Group A being the strongest performers (where performance is based on what they estimate theyll be capable of lifting). Once final results are collected for all groups, then the results are all combined for the weight class and ranked. The highest score wins gold, the one that follows bronze, and the third highest takes bronze.

Men and women are to use different barbells. Men use barbells weighing 20kg and 15kg respectively.Each bar must be equipped with two collars weighing 2.5Kg each.Discs are to be color coordinated according to the following: 25Kg red, 20Kg blue, 15Kg yellow 0.50Kg, 10Kg green, 5Kg white, 2.5Kg black, 0.50Kg chrome, and 0.25Kg chrome. The barbell is loaded in progression of lowest weight to heaviest weight. The barbell is never to be reduced to a lighter weight once an athlete has has performed a lift with the weight announced.
The minimum progression weight after a good lift is 2.5kg.The time limit for an athlete to begin an attempt after being called to the platform is one minute. At 30 seconds remaining there is a warning signal. The exception to this rule is when a competitor takes two attempts one after the other, in which case the athlete may rest up to 2 minutes. In such case, the athlete also gets a warning after 90 seconds have elapsed without a lift.

Each athlete is allowed three attempts at each chosen weight for each lift. Three referees judge the lift. If the lift is successful, the referee immediately hits a white button and a white light is turned on, indicating the lift as successful. In this case then the score is recorded.If a lift is unsuccessful or deemed invalid, then the referee hits the red button and a red light goes off. The highest score for each lift is the one that gets used as the official value for the lift.

Once the highest value has been collected for each lift, the total weight lifted in the snatch is added to the total weight lifted in the clean and jerk. The lifter with the highest combined weight lifted becomes the champion. In the case of a tie, then the lifter whose body weight is less becomes the champion.

Competition among people concerning who can lift the heaviest weight has been recorded in diverse and ancient civilizations as early as the earliest known recordings of such human events, including those found in Egypt, China and in ancient Greece. Today, the modern sport of weightlifting traces its origins to the European competitions of the 19th century.The first male world champion was crowned in 1891. Womens competition did not exist, and the weightlifters were not categorized by height or weight.

The first Olympic Games of 1896 included weightlifting in the Field event of the predecessor to todays Track and Field or Athletics event. During the 1900 Olympic Games, there was no weightlifting event. Weightlifting resumed as an event, again in Athletics, in 1904 but was omitted from the Games of 1908 and 1912. These were the last Games until after the First World War. In these early Games, a distinction was drawn between lifting with one hand only and lifting with two hands. The winner of the one hand competition in 1896 was Launceston Elliot, while the winner of the two hands event was Viggo Jensen of Denmark.

In 1920, weightlifting returned to the Olympics and, for the first time, as an event in its own right. At these Games, which took place in Antwerp, Belgium, fourteen nations competed. The competition lifts were the one hand snatch, the one hand clean and jerk and the two hands clean and jerk. At the next Olympic Games, in Paris, France, in 1924, the two hands press and the two hands snatch were added to the programme, making a total of five lifts.In the Olympic Games after 1920, instead of requiring all competitors to compete against each other regardless of size, weight classes were introduced and, by the 1932 Olympic Games, weightlifting was divided into five weight divisions.

The 110kg division weightlifting winners of the 1980 Olympic Games, held in Moscow.In 1928, the sport dropped the one hand exercises altogether leaving only the three remaining exercises: the clean and press, the snatch and the clean and jerk.

By 1972, the clean and press was discontinued because athletes started to push with legs and bend backwards instead of strictly pressing the weight overhead, and this left the sole elements of what is todays modern Olympic weightlifting programme the snatch and the clean and jerk. The snatch consists of lifting the barbell from the floor to an overhead position in one fluid motion. It is a very precise lift that can be nullified by a lack of balance of the athlete. The clean and jerk consists of moving the barbell from the floor to overhead in 2 movements, from the floor to the shoulders, and from shoulders to overhead; it is a more forgiving lift.

As early as 1987, there were official world championships awarded to women weightlifters such as Karyn Marshall and Judy Glenney. However, it was not until the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia that an official Olympic competition for women was introduced.
In 2011 the International Weightlifting Federation ruled that athletes could wear a full body unitard under the customary weightlifting uniform. Kulsoom Abdullah became the first woman to do so at the U.S. National Championships that year, and athletes are allowed to do so at the Olympics.IWF rules previously stated that an athletes knees and elbows must be visible so officials can determine if a lift is correctly executed.

Olympic weightlifting uses a steel bar (also known as a barbell) with rotating sleeves on either end, holding rubber coated discs of different weights. This sleeve rotation is important for the Olympic lifts, particularly the snatch and clean movements, because it drastically reduces the rotational inertia of the plates. Without sleeve rotation, the Olympic lifter faces more challenging lifts and a greater risk of injury.

A mens Olympic barbell weights 20kg (44lbs) with a shaft diameter of 28mm and a length of 2200mm, whereas a womens Olympic barbell weights 15kg (33lbs) and has a shaft diameter of 25mm with a length of 2100mm.This distance between the sleeves, however, remains the same for the mens and the womens bars at 1310mm. The grip texture of this bar section is called the knurling, and is distributed differently between the mens and womens bars: the mens has knurling in the centre but the womens does not. The Olympic barbells used in competition are certified by the IWF.

The weight plates, typically referred to as bumper plates because of their rubber design, weigh between 0.5 kg and 25 kg. The bumper plates are constructed out of rubber to allow the weights to be dropped from various heights