The IOC (International Olympic Committee) accepted the official weight categories for Olympic weightlifting at the 2024 Paris Games. The IWF (International Weightlifting Federation) proposed new weight divisions back in December 2021, which the IOC approved last Friday, April 1st, 2022. Let’s look at the changes to the Olympic weightlifting categories below.
New Weightlifting Categories At The 2024 Summer Games in Paris
The Paris Games are set to begin the summer of 2024. With these Games, there was some uncertainty surrounding Olympic weightlifting, which is one of the 32 sports athletes will compete in.
The major shakeup in weight classes includes moving from 14 total at the 2020 Tokyo Games to 10 classes at the 2024 Paris Games.
The number of athletes that will compete at the 2024 Paris Games is a huge reduction from previous Games. For example, the Tokyo games saw 196 athletes, while in the 2016 Rio Games, 260 athletes competed.
The reason for the significant drop in spots in the sport is due to the corruption inside the IWF coupled with constant doping scandals. This is a massive punishment to the sport of Olympic weightlifting, and we can only hope it serves as a wake-up call for how the IWF is handling its business.
2024 Paris Olympic Games Weight Divisions
The 10 weight divisions will be split down the middle with 5 men’s and 5 women’s
Men’s Weightlifting
- 61 Kg
- 73 Kg
- 89 Kg
- 102 Kg
- +102 Kg
Women’s Weightlifting
- 49 Kg
- 59 Kg
- 71 Kg
- 81 Kg
- +81 Kg
As you can see above, the divisions that have stayed from the 2020 Tokyo Games are the men’s 61kg and 73kg, as well as the women’s 49kg and 59kg. This means that the majority of the athletes will have to make adjustments by either moving up or down in weight.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
The 2024 Paris Games are set to take place from July 26-August 11th. Weightlifting is scheduled to take place from August 7-11th. We will keep you updated on any changes if/when they come out, as we all know that a lot can change within 2 years.
Kiel DiGiovanni
Author