BEIJING 2008 WEIGHTLIFTING WEIGHT OF THE WORLD 10 THINGS YOU ALREADY KNEW ABOUT OLYMPIC WEIGHTLIFTING… …BUT HAD KIND OF FORGOTTEN, WHAT WITH THE PRICE OF GAS, WORKING ALL THE HOURS AND THE FOOTY TIPPING NOT GOING TOO WELL Eight members of the Bulgarian All those fat units in team will get busted for drugs lumpy leotards remind 1 before, or during, the Games. 6 you, uncomfortably, of wrestling in the 1980s. That moment when the lifter heaves a quarter of a tonne If there’s going to be a 2 of dead weight onto his massive, agonising and shoulders, and brings the whole 7 unsightly injury in sport, thing into a shuddering squat, it’ll be in this event. A couple you think to yourself, “God help of dirty knee bandages aren’t us, that person is going to split going to stop it. in half.” In no The particular order, The word snatch the main occupations of combination will get the Iranian government are 8 of shouting enriching uranium ore 3 repeated , pondering and banging, its role in globa and enthusiastic l confl ic coupled with this bloke. Hossein Re t and feeding mentions from zazadeh is a migh huge chunks god of weightlifting in ty commentators. a country wher of metal sport is huge. T e the he two-time Olympic on the move champion, and multiple world champion Turkey, weighs 160kg and is k , and the Greece, nown as the world’s possibility of strongest man, hauling 263.5kg ov 4 Iran, head (in the clean and jerk er his catastrophic ), which is the Romania, China, equivalent of fi ve supermodels. When joint failure, and Bulgaria he fi rst broke the world record in leave you will compete in 2003, the Turks offered him slightly millions to def their own private ect, but he told on edge competition, and them to get stuffed throughout. everyone else, including (in Iranian). our guys (see below) Teachers, weightlifting can bugger off. monsters and tiny 9 15-year-old gymnasts Short-arses can lift huge have cornered the market for chalk. weights. You calculate that 5 it’s the equivalent of your There are times when you wife lifting you and your look at a female wedge of next-door neighbour at the 10 muscle with veins on the same time. Come to think of it, outside and prison-guard hair and your neighbour would jump think, fl eetingly, “The things that at the suggestion. woman could do to me.” DEBORAH LOVELY +75kg DAMON KELLY +105kg Deborah Lovely is a pretty Kelly lifted a PB qualifying for handy all-round athlete, the Games, adding 2kg to his though it’s lifting huge chunks snatch and 5kg to his jerk. In of metal above her head that’s China, he’s hoping to raise the taken her to two Olympics. bar even further. PHOTOGRAPH: GETTY IMAGES. PHOTOGRAPH: 82 MAGAZINE.COM.AU AUGUST 2008 AAL37_WeightLifting.inddL37_WeightLifting.indd SSec2:82ec2:82 33/7/08/7/08 111:21:171:21:17 AAMM.