Olmps

Hungary v. Ussr

at the 1956 Olympics

The Melbourne Olympics were played in the shadow of the Hungar - ian revolution and the recent invasion of the country by the Soviet Army.As luck would have it, the Hungarian and Soviet water polo teams shared a boat for the journey to Australia – and the fighting began on board. Once in Australia, the large expatriate Hungarian community in Melbourne made sure that the Hungarian team were well aware of their feelings – and when the two teams met in their final group game, nearly

5,000 Hungarian Australians came along to watch.

The Hungarians went into the game intending to wind up their opponents.It didn’t take much to get them going.The second minute of the game saw one Soviet player grip his Hungarian opponent in a hammer lock, whereupon he was excluded, to a hail of cat calls.This set things up nicely. Early in the second half, with the Hungarians leading 2-0, Boris Markarov delivered a haymaker punch to the eye of Hungary’s Belvari. All hell broke loose; the pool was engulfed in fighting and the ball all but forgotten. In the final min-

utes of the game, a Russian hit

Hungarian Ervin Zador so hard that he split his brow, opening a wound that bled profusely into the water.The crowd spilled out of the stands and on to the tiles around the pool, screaming at the Soviets and forcing the police to intervene.

Hungary held on to win 4-0.

Afterwards Zador made clear what had been at stake: ‘We felt we were playing not just for ourselves but for our whole country.’Several members of the Hungarian team defected and stayed in Australia.

HELLO BOYS! THE SINGAPOREAN GOVERNMENT Wasn’T BEST PLEASED WITH THIS SARTORIAL COCK-UP

There is fun to be had, too, for fashion spotters..At the 2010 Asian Games, Singapore’s male players were sharply criticised by their government for their undignified swim suits.. Designed by the team themselves,the trunks,like the national flag,were red with five white stars and a white crescent.. Unintentionally or not, the crescent was positioned directly over the players’ groins..

WEIGHTLIFTING

28 July–7 August 2012 ExCeL Arena, London

Athletes: 260 | Golds up for grabs: 15

Olympic Presence

1896, 1904, 1920–present

Olympic Format

Athletes in all weight categories perform two lifts:

the snatch, in which they raise the bar over their heads in one movement, and the clean-and-jerk, in which they do it in two..The maximum weights a competitor lifts in each are added together to give his or her total..

Current Contenders:

Greece, Turkey, Russia, Bulgaria and China are the

leading nations in men’s weightlifting..Asian lifters, Chinese in particular, are likely to dominate the women’s competition..

Past Champions:

USSR: 39 | China: 24 | USA: 16 | Bulgaria: 12

Why Watch Weightlifting?

If the 100 metres is the purest test of the citius

(‘faster’) portion of the Olympic motto, and the high jump and pole vault of the altius (‘higher’), the fortius (‘stronger’) bit unquestionably belongs to Weightlifting..The sport provides some of the best theatre at the Games.. It may have a drug record to rival theTour de France but there are few Olympic sights as exhilarating

344 HOW TO WATCH THE OLYMPICS

as an athlete psyching himself up to an almost unbearable pitch before hoisting three times his body weight over his head..

The mechanics of the sport favour short, squat athletes who don’t have to hoist the weight as

convince themselves that they can, they may well prove correct.. Meanwhile, the fact that competitors can only attempt three lifts in each discipline allows them to play fearsome mind games with their opponents. .The most common is to select an intimidating starting weight.. Of course this policy can backfire – it isn’t unheard of for a weightlifter to make the initial bar so heavy that they fail to register a single lift..

The Story of Weightlifting

Humans have doubtless been comparing strength by

lifting heavy objects since we developed opposable thumbs. .The earliest historical record of the practice, however, is a mural of men exercising with weights (possibly sacks of sand) in the ancient Egyptian tomb of the Beni Hassan, c.. 3500bc..Weightlifting was an important aspect of military training in several parts of the ancient

world,notably in China,where two distinct forms of contest evolved during the first millennium bc..The first was Qiao Guan, which involved grabbing one end of a heavy door bar and lifting it with one hand.. Popular among court warriors, by theTang Dynasty (618– 907ad) it had become part of the examination for admission to the army, with the door bar replaced by tailor-made weights..The other format, Kang Ding, entailed the lifting of massive two-handled cooking pots or dings. . During the Han Dynasty (206bc–220ad), Kang Ding developed into a fully fledged professional sport..

Weightlifting was also big in ancient Greece, both as a conditioning activity for soldiers and as a demonstration of machismo.. A red sandstone block weighing 143kg displayed at the archaeological museum at Olympia bears the inscription ‘Bybon son of Phola lifted me over his head with one hand’.. Meanwhile, Bybon’s contemporary Milo of Croton, the sixth-century bc superman who we will meet again in the Wrestling chapter, is the first lifter recorded as using a progressive system of resistance training. . He acquired a male calf, lifted it every day and continued to do so until it had grown into a bull..When he could no longer shift it, he ate it..

The Romans inherited the Greeks’ penchant for weightlifting but during the Dark and Middle Ages the focus of activity shifted to the Celtic and Scandinavian fringes of Europe.. Here the sport took the form of elemental battles between man and nature in the shape of enormous rocks..To get work on a fishing vessel in Iceland, a candidate had to be able to hoist a 104kg boulder called a hálfsterkur (‘half strength’) onto a hip-height ledge..The full strength version (fullsterkur) weighed 155kg..The Scots also used lifting stones as male initiation devices.. Known as clach cuid fir (‘manhood stones’), they included such legendary lumps of mineral as the McGlashen Stones and the Blue Stones of Old Dailly..

Weightlifting in its modern form grew out of a mania for all things classical that swept through Europe and the USA during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.. One aspect of this was a renewed interest in physical training, which led aristocratic young men to join gymnasiums and universities to add PE to their curricula. .The phenomenon that really glamorised weightlifting, however, was the circus strongman.. People on both sides of the

346 HOW TO WATCH THE OLYMPICS

Atlantic flocked to watch big moustachioed men break chains, lift horses and pick up cannons..

One of the most influential members of this colourful gang was the German Louis Attila, born Ludwig Durlacher in 1844.. Following a spell in partnership withValerie the Female Gladiator, he introduced all kinds of innovations to weightlifting, including the invention of the shot-loaded globe barbell..This device, which allowed the weight of a single piece of equipment to be varied precisely, spelled the end for the old fashioned dumbbell (originally a shaft with a pair of clapperless bells at either end).. People – including crowned heads of state – began to solicit Attila’s advice on strength and fitness training, and around 1887 he opened his first gym in Brussels..After running a similar institution in London, in 1893 he founded the wildly successful Attila’s Athletic Studio and School of Physical Culture in NewYork..Among his students were the boxing champion James J.. Corbett and, astonishingly for the era, several women..

Other developments that helped transform weightlifting from sideshow attraction to sport included the disc loading system of weights, introduced by

M. M. Pelletier Monnier

in the 1880s, and, in the

1920s, Charles Rigoulot’s

pioneering use of a long,

springy bar, which he

employed to break the clean-and-jerk world record. . Meanwhile, training became increasingly scientific.. In 1906, the nine-stone W. A. Pullum founded the first weightlifting school that emphasised technique over strength. . Six years later, he vindicated his methods by becoming the first Briton to lift twice his bodyweight..

The final pieces in the jigsaw were the establishment in 1920 of a global governing body for the sport, the International Weight- lifting Federation, and the emergence of competitions for women..The first women’s event was held in the USA in 1947..

Game On: Weightlifting Basics

Format

Men compete in eight bodyweight categories (56kg,

62kg, 69kg, 77kg, 85kg, 94kg, 105kg, 105kg+) and women in seven (48kg, 53kg, 58kg, 63kg, 69kg, 75kg, 75kg+).. 156 men and 104 women will take part in the weightlifting competitions in London.. No nation may enter more than ten individuals in total or more than two in any one event..

Rules

Competitors are required to register successful lifts

in both the snatch and the clean-and-jerk, which take place in that order..A maximum of three attempts is allowed in each discipline, whether the lifts are successful or not..After being called to the platform, a competitor has one minute to commence their lift or two if they made the previous lift in the competition themselves.. If they succeed in lifting a weight, it must be increased by at least 1kg for their next attempt (though they are usually increased in multiples of 2..5kg)..

For a lift to be declared valid it must be performed in the cor- rect number of movements – one in the snatch, two in the clean-and-jerk. . Once the weight is above the head, the elbows must be locked, the legs brought together and the competitor must be in complete control for long enough for at least two of the three judges to register a good lift..

They do this by pressing buttons which illuminate white lights.. No-lifts are signalled by red lights..A jury is on hand to vet the judges’ decisions.. If a lifter drops the bar before lowering it to waist height, the lift is technically invalid.. If two competitors

movement (bringing the bar to shoulder height), the lifter drops into a squat position before simultaneously straightening the legs and powering upwards with their arms..

Equipment

Lifting takes place on a 4x4m wooden platform coated

with a non-slip surface..The disc weights, which are fastened in place with a 2..5kg collar at each end, are colour-coded from black (2..5kg) to red (25kg)..

Competitors wear one-piece leotards, with or without T-shirts underneath. .They are allowed to wear support belts,

gloves, knee bandages and caps. . Lifters are allowed to chalk

their hands to improve their grips and tend to do so copiously.. They are also permitted to use ammonium carbonate smelling salts to render themselves suitably pugnacious..

The Finer Points

Psyching Up

One of the pleasures of watching the sport is trying

to guess whether or not a lifter is going to succeed at a particular weight on the basis of their conduct immediately prior to the attempt.. Pay attention to the way a lifter chalks their hands and to their facial expressions and body language.. Do they betray nervousness or suggest self-belief? And does the vibe change during the maximum of sixty seconds they have between mounting the platform and attempting the lift?

Some lifters have highly distinctive ways of getting themselves into the zone..The Iranian Kurd Mohammad Nasiri, who won the bantamweight gold in Mexico, used to pray for thirty seconds, then turn to the bar and shout ‘Ya Ali!’ in homage to the first leader of the Shiites.. Japan’s Takashi Ichiba, who came fourth in the same class in 1984, performed a back-flip before each attempt.. Other lifters more or less beat themselves up to get their adrenaline pumping..

Elbows, Explosions and Execution

When the moment of truth comes, try to gauge the

explosivity of the lift or the lack of it. .This is a pretty good guide to how much the lifter may have left in the tank.. Speed of execution is essential to successful weightlifting as it minimises the expenditure of energy..Watch out for whether the elbows lock and the legs come together in the last phase of the lift.. If they don’t, it ought to be declared invalid..Allow yourself to get swept up by the emotions of the crowd. .Weightlifting fans are a vocal lot so don’t be shy about yelling at the telly..

The Inside Dope on weightlifting

Of the ninety-nine humans (there have also been a few horses) busted for doping offences at the Games between 1968 and 2008,

thirty-eight were weightlifters, the first two testing positive in 1972. The use of performance-enhancing substances in sport is as old as sport.

Athletes at the ancient Games used to pep themselves up by eating lizard meat, nineteenth-century bike-racers sometimes ingested nitroglycerine to dilate their blood vessels, and the winner of the 1904 marathon was boosted by a shot of strychnine and a glass of brandy. But weightlifting, being all about explosiveness and muscle development – attributes which the illicit administration of drugs can profoundly improve – has been particularly vulnerable to interference from the laboratories.

The key figure in the evolution of doping in the modern era was the American Dr John Ziegler. In 1954, he travelled to Vienna with the US weightlifting team, where he fell into conversation with a Soviet trainer. Lubricated by a few drinks, the Russian revealed that ‘his boys’ had been routinely receiving testosterone injections since the mid-1940s. When Ziegler got back to the States, he dosed himself, the great Bob Hoffman and two lifters with the hormone but was unhappy with the side effects.

His dissatisfaction led him to work with the Ciba Pharmaceutical Group to develop an oral anabolic steroid (a class of drugs that mimic the effects of testosterone) called Dianabol, which hit the market in 1960. Ziegler administered the drug to the entire US weightlifting squad at that year’s Olympics

– entirely legally, it should be pointed out, as the IOC didn’t formally ban