Let’s discuss, let’s argue
On the Need to Change the Rules for Determining the Winner in Weightlifting Competitions
English summary of Tyazhelaya Atletika. Ezhegodnik 1986 (Moscow: Fizkultura i Sport, 1986), pp. 38–40: the text is paraphrased, not translated.
Abridged translation of an article from the Bulgarian journal Voprosi na fizicheskata kultura, 1984, No. 7.
As results approach the physical limit, progress slows while competition among many highly qualified athletes intensifies. More objective criteria for naming winners are needed: subjectivity must be overcome, the result measured precisely, and the criterion based on the factors that chiefly decide it. The author examines the criteria used in weightlifting.
Weightlifting was in the first modern Olympics. From 1920 lifters competed in the three-event total (press, snatch, clean and jerk) and from 1976 in the two-event total (snatch, clean and jerk). Since 1920 a total must be a multiple of 2.5 kg, so a record can improve by no less than 2.5 kg, and the smallest gap between, say, the champion and the runner-up is the same. Since 1920 too, if two lifters finish with equal totals, the lighter is the winner.
How often bodyweight decides
The author analysed the top ten at the 1970–1983 world championships.
- Over 14 years 1330 lifters reached the top ten, and 385 (28.94%) had the same two-event total as a rival. About a third of placings were thus decided by bodyweight, not by performance.
- Ties were most common in 1977 and least in 1971. In 1979, in the 52 and 56 kg classes, 7 of 10 lifters had equal totals. Sometimes 8 of 10 placed higher than rivals only because they were lighter (52 kg in 1980, 56 kg in 1977, 60 kg in 1979, 110 kg in 1975).
- The 56 kg class had most cases, with 37.85% of its lifters beating rivals on bodyweight, followed by 52 kg (33.57%) and 67.5 kg (32.14%).
The tie-break puts bodyweight second after the sporting result, apparently on the basis of the second law of dynamics. But although results rise with bodyweight, the relation is not proportional. Other factors, well explained by modern theory and methodology, influence results more: morphological and physiological factors of strength, its dependence on the conditions of movement, and technical skill. Training methodology, the main means of turning muscular strength into real results, is shaped by all of them. The rules therefore need radical change.
The unit of measurement
In other sports the unit of measurement keeps shrinking: the second was divided by 10, then 100, then 1000, whereas in weightlifting the two-event total has a smallest unit of 2.5 kg. A 100 m record can improve by 0.01 s, about 1/1000 of the time, or 0.10%. The lowest world record was the 52 kg snatch, recently 115 kg; the rules allowed at least 0.5 kg improvement, 1/230 of the result or 0.43%. Across records from that up to the superheavyweight clean and jerk (261 kg) the minimum increment runs from 0.43% to 0.19%, and for the total 0.96%. Where the gap must be 2.5 kg, the minimum percentage increment reaches 2.16%, 22 times that in the 100 m. Other sports thus reward even a minimal advantage, while in weightlifting bodyweight often decides.
Proposals
The author would let lifters, after the second attempt, add at least 0.5 kg instead of 2.5 kg, and give them four attempts in each lift. This would enrich tactics, cut the “red” verdicts on the scoreboard (fewer failed attempts), raise spectator interest and make the stronger lifter, not the lighter, the winner. Ties would be rare. Three ways to break them: name the lifter with fewer failed attempts; allow extra attempts at a lighter weight until one lifter totals 0.5 kg more; and only then consider bodyweight.
The likeliest objection is longer competitions, but time is available. At the 1984 European championship in Vitoria an attempt took on average 1 min 15.47 s; in Sofia in 1965 it took 2 min 23.4 s; at the 1977 world junior championship in Sofia 1 min 33.16 s, so three attempts needed 3 min 46.44 s of the 6 min allowed. A lifter could use 6 min for four attempts, no more than 2 min for one, or 1.3 min for each.
Conclusions and recommendations
- The two-event total should be a multiple of 0.5 kg, measured and recorded to that precision.
- Each lifter should have four attempts in the snatch and in the clean and jerk, with the present 5 kg between first and second and at least 0.5 kg between second and third and third and fourth. The extra attempt (here the fifth) for a record should stay.
- Equal totals should be resolved (a) by the number of successful attempts, the higher going to the lifter with more, and (b) if these are equal, by bodyweight, the lighter placing higher.
What matters is to make equal results exceptional; today they are a steady trend. Such recommendations usually meet caution, so before changing the regulations one could try them at a World Cup, the Danube Cup, the Balkan Games or a national championship.