That's where you'd be very, very wrong.

The IWF (International Weightlifting Federation) is notoriously corrupt. So corrupt that the IOC has repeatedly threatened to take the sport away from the Olympics. I mean they've every trick: dopplegangers, they pay the testers from HUNADO, vote rigging and the list goes on. The old president (Ajan) was at the IWF since the 70s and president for over 20 years. 10m missing...
A few examples:
-Bunch of athletes tested internally were all clean, but when tested by USADA (IWF kept making a fuss and wanted them to be tested by "experienced HUNADO testers" when a competition was in the US): they all came out positive, syringes found in hotels etc.
-Retrospective drugs tests from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics revealed 60+ positives cases (30+ of which were medalists!). This is the most of any sport. The Polish lifter Zielinski came in 9th in 2012, but years later got awarded 3rd because of the retests. When that same guy tried to compete in 2016 he was caught with drugs himself... You just don't hear about it because weightlifting is of little interest to the average Joe.
-Lasha (Georgian superheavyweight, probably one of the strongest men in the world) was banned briefly in 2013 for drugs. When he came back he had added 80kg to his total and will be competing in Tokyo.
-Then there's the fact that many countries don't test at all (Iran/North Korea) or use new undetectable pharmaceuticals (China--keep in mind most pharmaceuticals are based on compounds developed in the 60s with no new research in western countries since banned). Not to mention the corruption mentioned above at the IWF by basically most small countries (Azerbaijan, Georgia, Bulgaria etc). They purposely don't test some top guys and so on. WADA can't get into some of the abovementioned countries, vs places like western countries where you need to give your whereabouts at all times and you need to be free to piss in a cup and give a blood sample at 8pm on a Wednesday night... The list goes on and on.
-Here's a list of the top 100m times with those eventually popped crossed out. Do you really think Bolt was clean for the entirety of his career (like Ben Johnson/Lewis)? Or is he a chosen "favourite" like Armstrong was back in the day? The list is as bad in Oly lifting.



The reason the strongman dudes look much bigger is because... they're bigger! There are no competitive strongmen under 6', and most of the winners are around 2m tall. A lot of the events (atlas stones, tire flips, keg throws etc) favour height, so you basically need to be a big, tall guy to be competitive. Also, I think they started with no weight classes originally, and most federations will now only have 3 or so (don't quote me on this as I'm no strongman expert). Meanwhile, weightlifting and powerlifting have a lot more weight classes, so making weight is a big aspect of it (like fighting sports). Some powerlifitng federations are tested, and some untested.

Two great Irish channels outline the situation quite well. There are only like 4 Olympic weightlifting channels on Youtube, and two are Irish, one American and one British.
Clarence Kennedy (Calrence0) about doping and why doping should be allowed:


Sika Strength about China doping at Tokyo:

nerdlinger wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 7:34 pm

tightenupvolume1 wrote: ↑Mon Aug 02, 2021 1:27 pm I reckon new Zealand will easily win the women's weightlifting today, i have money on it

She just came bottom of her group, which makes you both wrong and an asshole.

New Zealand scores 1,971 Gold medals!

- well they would have if they had the population of China

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 12:23 am New Zealand scores 1,971 Gold medals!

- well they would have if they had the population of China

Approximate combined population of Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand is 135 million. Less than 10% of China, 40% of USA and just a bit less than Russia.

Their combine medals are 46 gold, 35 silver and 53 bronze. Puts them top of the table in my book.

hburns wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:37 pm

SternAAlbifrons wrote: ↑Fri Aug 06, 2021 12:23 am New Zealand scores 1,971 Gold medals!

- well they would have if they had the population of China

Approximate combined population of Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand is 135 million. Less than 10% of China, 40% of USA and just a bit less than Russia.

Their combine medals are 46 gold, 35 silver and 53 bronze. Puts them top of the table in my book.

If we play it like that then Yorkshire came twelfth in the medals table last time out