To understand this article, you need to know what’s been going on in Olympic weightlifting over the last few years. Many of you already know about the things I’m going to tell you, and a quick explanation will be enough for those of you who don’t.
 
The sport of weightlifting has had a problem with performance-enhancing drugs for decades. Most people know this already. However, the problem has gotten much more publicly visible since 2015. Dozens of top international lifters have been testing positive for drugs, many of them on retests from previous years, and the suspensions have been flying. The list of athletes who have been popped and kicked out is a virtual Who’s Who of World and Olympic champions. It’s turned into one big doping news bombshell after another. In my 30 years in the sport, I’ve never seen anything like it. We’ve had drug scandals before, but not of this magnitude.
 
And because this whole situation has gotten so messy, the International Olympic Committee has openly announced that weightlifting is in danger of being removed from the Olympic Games. Our sport has turned into a huge public relations black eye for the IOC because of the doping rampage, and they’re considering just giving us the boot altogether. Those of you who follow the sport probably know this already.
 
As of the writing of this article (February 2017), the ax hasn’t fallen yet. Weightlifting is still an Olympic sport. However, the discussion is ongoing at the top levels. There’s a realistic chance we could lose our Olympic status before the 2024 Games. Personally, I think we’re in 50/50 territory at the moment. The IOC is serious, for sure. They’d kick us out. But they haven’t yet, and nobody knows what the future holds.
 
What I want to look at in this article is the question of, “What would happen to the sport of weightlifting if it got kicked out of the Olympics?” It’s a scary proposition, and I sincerely hope it’ll never come to pass. However, the events of the last three years have made it a legitimate possibility. So…let’s just hypothetically say it DOES happen. Where would the sport go? What would happen to it, and to all of us? How would it change the game? How would it change our lives?
 
Many of you might think it wouldn’t affect you at all if weightlifting got kicked out of the Olympics because you’re not Olympic contenders. Trust me; it would. Anybody who’s involved in the sport, even at the lowest levels, would feel the ripple effect of a change like this. I’m not saying it would wreck your entire experience in the game, but I’m definitely saying certain things wouldn’t be the same. So let’s take a look at how the big picture might form if it actually happens, and what we should all be prepared for.
 
Don’t Worry; We’ll Survive
 
I think there’s a general fear floating around that if you took the word “Olympic” out of Olympic weightlifting, the sport would slowly collapse and die. I don’t think it would go like that, and there are a few reasons why.
 
First of all, there are several strength sports in the world that aren’t in the Olympic Games, and they’re thriving. Powerlifting, strongman, and bodybuilding come to mind immediately. Each of these are global sports that have started, grown, developed, and risen to popularity without becoming part of the Olympic family. Some of the people in these sports would like to be in the Olympics, but many of them could care less. Olympic dreams aren’t what drew people to them. They were born purely out of human desire. Just like weightlifting, there’s some money in these sports if you’re at the absolute top, while the vast majority of their participants are doing it just for the love of the game. I don’t know the exact dollars involved, but I’m pretty sure you can make more for being a world champion in bodybuilding or strongman than you could in Olympic lifting. The point is obvious: Olympic membership doesn’t make or break a sport. That’s one reason why we don’t need to predict doom.
 
The second reason is that public demand for Olympic weightlifting is higher now than any other time in history. Whether anybody likes to admit it or not, we have to thank CrossFit for this. I know it’s an industry with a lot of flaws, but there’s absolutely no question that CrossFit made weightlifting drastically more visible and available to the general public, which has resulted in a massive membership increase in the sport. You really have to come from the old school of weightlifting (15+ years) to fully appreciate just how dramatic the change has been. Back when I started in the 90s, it was damn near impossible to get people to pay attention to this thing of ours. Now, a billion-dollar corporation like Nike makes t-shirts with “Weightlifting” on them, for Pete’s sake. To make a long story short, I think the sport has enough momentum built up to keep it strong whether we’re in the Olympics or not. I don’t know if I would have felt that way 20 years ago, but I definitely do now.
 
Plus, there’s the simple appeal of the Olympic lifts. You all know what I mean. Look at it this way: you’re all hooked on this sport, right? Sure you are. And I don’t want to sound disrespectful, but the vast majority of you don’t have a chance in hell of ever going to the Olympics. Does that stop you from loving it, and caring about it so much you actually go online and subscribe to magazines so you can read about it in your spare time? No, it doesn’t. You love it for two reasons: the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk. Those two lifts have burrowed into your soul, and nothing is going to stop you from your obsession with getting better at them and lifting heavier weights.
 
So we’ll make it if we get tossed out of the Olympics. At the risk of sounding corny, the beauty and power of the Olympic lifts themselves are incredible enough to make sure the sport never fizzles. I’m confident in this.
 
But It Wouldn’t Be the Same
 
Now that I’ve told you we’ll all be fine if the ax falls, let me go back in the other direction and tell you how badly we still need to stay in the Olympics.
 
I’ll tell you a little personal story to illustrate this. I started my competitive lifting career in powerlifting, as I’ve written about before. I was pretty good, too. By the time I graduated high school, I had already won two state championships, a teenage national championship, broken a ton of records, and deadlifted 535 lbs. at 198 lbs. bodyweight as a 17-year-old. I had a future in the sport, and I was having a blast.
 
Then I competed in my first Olympic lifting meet in 1990. I had no coach, no idea what I was doing, and no technical skill whatsoever. I basically decided to lift in the meet just to have fun trying something new, with no intention of pursuing it beyond that. It was supposed to be a one-time thing. Little did I know what was in store for me. First, as we talked about earlier, I fell madly in love with the Snatch and the Clean and Jerk. Walking up on that platform by myself and nailing good lifts over my head was a thrill unlike anything I had ever experienced in any other sport. It overwhelmed me. As long as I live, I’ll never forget hitting my 3^rd C&J with 100 kilos at that meet, which I had never lifted at that time.
 
However, it went a lot deeper than the simple joy of the lifts. Once I started getting involved in the sport, the Olympic aspect was a massive factor in the excitement of the whole thing. I know it sounds silly to say things like this, but there’s a special magic that comes from the Olympics. Why do you think the entire planet focuses on it so intensely every four years? Why do you think there’s so much money involved with it? Why do you think gold medals are considered one of the pinnacle accomplishments an athlete can attain? Because it’s the Olympics, folks. It has an aura unlike anything else in the world. And I personally believe that aura touches every single person who participates in the sport, regardless of the level they’re operating at. When I was getting started in the sport, I was young and talented, and coaches were telling me I had a lot of potential. I honestly didn’t think of myself as an Olympic prospect, but that didn’t stop me from feeling the “Olympic thing” deep in my bones. It’s one of the main reasons I walked away from a sport I was already a champion in, and it’s certainly one of the primary draws for young athletes in sports all over the globe.
 
I sometimes see people on social media saying things like, “Screw the Olympics! Let them throw us out!” Wrong, wrong, wrong. There’s absolutely nothing more certain than the fact that we desperately want to stay an Olympic sport. It’s one of the greatest honors there is.
 
And I Hate to Say it, But There’s Money, Too
 
Unfortunately, there’s an additional thing that needs to get mentioned along with all this inspirational talk about the Olympic spirit. It’s the dollars that come into our sport from the Olympic Committee. Don’t fool yourself for one second; this is a big piece of the puzzle. If we lose our Olympic status, we’re on our own financially. I know the USOC and other national governing bodies around the world don’t give out NFL or NBA type money, but we’d feel the bite if we lost the dollars they do give us. It would make the operations of the sport considerably more difficult.
 
At the end of the day, we all just need to hope for the best. The doping issue is a very complex one. If more athletes continue to get popped for doping and our sport suspends them, it’ll show that we’re catching cheaters and punishing them. That’s good. But at the same time, catching a lot of dopers just continues to advertise to the world what a dirty sport we are. That’s bad. You want to know what would help a lot? If people stopped taking drugs. I think that might improve the situation a bit.
 
But since we’ve got multiple countries in the world that have conclusively proven they’ve got an iron-clad commitment to doping, we’re living in a dream world if we think it’s ever going to completely clean up. The only thing that could really start to fix it, in my opinion, would be banning entire countries for long periods of time. Don’t suspend Russia, China, and Kazakhstan for one year. Suspend them for five years…or longer. If we really want to clean things up, we have to get rid of the ones who are making the mess.
 
So now we’re going down another rabbit hole, right? I’m wrapping this article up, so I’m going to skip the rant that follows those last statements. The point I’m trying to get across is that we’re all devoting a significant chunk of our lives to this sport, and being in the Olympics is an indescribably important part of the whole thing. If we ever get cut out of the Olympic family, we’ll endure. But it would never be the same. Not even close. All we can do individually is continue supporting weightlifting, taking a stand for clean sport and contributing what we can, in our own ways. Whatever you contribute to this sport, keep up the good work. And if the nightmare becomes a reality and we get tossed out, you’ll have to contribute even more. It’s the only way we’ll get to keep doing what we love.