The Olympics are right around the corner.
 
Damn, it feels good to say that. As we all know, there was a time not too long ago when we wondered if the whole shebang was even going to happen. When COVID-19 flipped the world upside down and stomped on it last year, the 2020 Tokyo Olympics went out the window (along with everything else in our lives). The official word was postponement, but let’s be honest: things were so bad for a while, I think everybody wondered if “postponement” was going to turn into “cancellation.”
 
As far as I know, that’s not what’s going to happen. The Olympics have been scheduled for July 23-August 8, 2021. The head of the Tokyo Olympic Committee has publicly said that the Games will NOT be canceled. So, there you go. Even though COVID hasn’t been washed from the face of the earth, we’re still going to move forward.
 
Obviously, I love this decision. I take COVID seriously, but I still think the Olympics should happen. And what an interesting predicament weightlifting is in at the moment.
 
What I want to do in this article is make some forecasts and predictions for what’s going to happen when our Olympians hit the platform in a couple of months. In case you haven’t been staying current on the weightlifting news of the world over the last year, let me say that there are sketchy situations everywhere you look right now. It’s a time for celebration and excitement, because the big show is approaching. It’s also a time for nervousness and worry, because weightlifting’s days in the big show might be numbered.
 
There is literally nothing more exciting than watching weightlifters compete at the Olympic Games. Get on YouTube and watch replays of the 1996 battle between Naim Suleymanoglu and Valerios Leonidas if you want to understand what I’m talking about. When I think about moments like that one, and dozens of others over the last few decades, I can’t believe how lucky we all are to be part of this remarkable sport.
 
And in a couple of months, there are several distinct possibilities. We might see some of the greatest performances in history. We’ve certainly got the athletes to do it right now. We might see the greatest resurgence of American weightlifting that we’ve ever seen. We might also see another drug scandal that serves as the straw that breaks the camel’s back with the International Olympic Committee. We could see the most thrilling action ever, and then we could see it all end.
 
Ugh. It’s such a mixed bag of emotions. Anticipation, intensity, fear, enthusiasm, gratitude, hopelessness, and many others I could list. Let me start itemizing some of the main points of what I’m talking about.
 
Headline #1: The IWF’s suicide mission
 
For the sake of brevity in this article, I’m not going to do a complete recap of the current situation regarding the International Weightlifting Federation and the International Olympic Committee. But I’ll give you a quick summary.
 
Olympic weightlifting has had a massive doping problem for decades. Most of the top countries in the sport have organized national doping systems, and the cheating has basically been allowed/enabled by the officials who run the International Weightlifting Federation. But over the last 10 years, the problem has risen to the surface in the public eye, and a series of massive doping scandals has caused the International Olympic Committee to seriously consider removing weightlifting from the Olympics because the IWF is so dirty and corrupt.
 
The IWF has handled this situation by continuing to make horrible administrative decisions that protect and coddle the dopers. The IOC is watching every bit of it and continuing to warn us that we’re one small step away from termination, but still the insanity continues. The IWF is killing our sport’s chances of staying in the Olympics, and they’re wearing a bright red shirt while they do it. We’re all weeping and gnashing our teeth as we watch from the outside, hoping the axe doesn’t fall.
 
Headline #2: Phenomenal World Records

Take a look at the results of the Asian Games and European Championships earlier in 2021. There are some massive, staggering numbers being put up these days. Russia has been neutered back quite a bit by doping sanctions over the last few years, and most of their lifters look extremely mortal on the platform. In many weight classes, they’re not even competing for medals.
 
Not so much in China. They basically just keep getting better and better. Lu Xiaojun, arguably the greatest Chinese weightlifter ever and one of the sport’s biggest global superstars, is gunning for his third Olympic gold medal. The Chinese women could literally set world records in any weight class they enter. Fellow champions Tian Tao and Shi Zhiyong are loaded for bear, and they’ve even got a big guy now, which is rare…109 kg star Yang Zhe, who snatched 200 kg last month. When we open up the Tokyo Games, Chinese lifters will storm the beaches with a vengeance.
 
And then there’s Lasha Talakhadze.
 
We’ve seen plenty of astonishing lifters over the last half century, but there have only been a few who completely dropped the jaws of the entire world with their ability to lift weights people could barely comprehend. Vasily Alexeev did it in the 70s, Suleymanoglu did it in the 80s and 90s, and now there’s Lasha. He belongs in that category. For most of my thirty years in weightlifting, people have talked about certain numbers the same way they talk about alien abductions and the Loch Ness Monster. 225 kg snatches (four red plates and a collar on each side of the bar), 600 lb. clean and jerks, 500 kg totals. These have been fun conversational lifts that nobody thought they’d actually see one day. Lasha is lifting those weights, and lifting them easily. He was basically dropped here from another planet, and the strength world is jittering with anticipation at what he might do on the Tokyo stage.
 
The list goes on from there. Romanian Loredana Toma has become weightlifting’s sweetheart, and she has the coolest nickname in history (the Tomanator). Taipei’s Kuo Hsing Chun is right in that same mix. Thirty years ago, weightlifters were just…weightlifters. Instagram has turned them into celebrities, and thousands of fans can’t wait to see what they do at the Olympics.
 
Headline #3:  Guess what? The Americans are in this too!
 
You have to understand something. Throughout most of my history in weightlifting, the US has never been in the running for anything serious at the Olympics. We send our best lifters every four years, and we’re always pumped for them, but we know ahead of time that we’re probably looking at 8^th place finishes, at best. We’ve had some rare moments of success when we scored medals, but they’ve been few and far between. It’s usually been a bit of a hopeless experience.
 
But the times, they are a-changin’. The fight against doping has been slightly-somewhat-kinda effective in curbing a smidgen of the drug rampage that’s always held us down. And at the same time, we’ve had an influx of some of the most talented weightlifters in US history over the last five years. End result = we’ve got some studs that have a shot to make some noise on the podium in Tokyo. Cummings, Nye, Maurus, Rogers, Delacruz, and several others. If they have big performances and the dopers get whittled back a little, it could be some fun times for American weightlifting. It’s probably the most hopeful feeling I can remember heading into an Olympic Games.
 
Headline #4: But hold off on the optimism
 
Remember all those international superstars I mentioned a minute ago? If a bunch of them test positive for drugs at the Olympics, it might give the IOC enough ammunition to remove us from the Olympic program.
 
As I said earlier, we’ve been on thin ice for a long time. The IOC cares a lot about public relations, and they don’t like embarrassing scandals. Weightlifting specializes in those, and it’s not like the sport has cleaned up. All those massive world record lifts we could potentially see? They’re all being done by lifters who are taking drugs. I’m sorry to have to say that, but it’s true and everybody know it. That’s the conundrum of this whole thing. The fans want to see the huge lifts, but the huge lifts are usually produced by doping, and doping has put our sport’s head in a guillotine.
 
It’s such a twisted blend of excitement and gloom. And the administrative representatives of our sport (the IWF) are almost as corrupt as the Mafia, so that’s not doing us any favors.
 
My predictions?
 
I think the lifts are going to be huge, for sure. I saw the results of the continental championships. The world’s best lifters are coming in guns blazing. Records are going to fall, and the competition for medals will be furious. It’s always like this at the Olympics, and I think this one will be no different.
 
I think we’ll have drug positives, but they won’t come from the superstars. They’ll probably be the second-level competitors. The big question will be whether the drug testing situation develops into a full-blown nuclear news scandal. I think we could stay under the public radar if we have the normal handful of drug positives you see at the Olympic Games. Everybody knows there are drugs in lots of sports, and weightlifting could come out of this thing looking pretty good if the drug suspensions are relatively small and quiet.
 
But if we have another 2015-esque drug scandal, it might lead to the end. I’m not predicting that weightlifting will get removed from the Olympics, but only because I could never bring myself to make that kind of prediction, you know? I’m not saying I don’t think it will happen. It definitely could. But I just can’t forecast it. Think of that what you will.
 
Oh, by the way, there’s also this Covid-19 thing going on. Don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Will Covid punch holes in the whole party? Will the pandemic spike again in the next couple of months? What will the Games look like? Will the athletes all have to wear masks while they’re competing? Will there be some kind of massive spike that cuts the Games short or something like that?
 
I’m not even going to touch any of that. I’m simply not going to factor Covid into any of my forecasts for the Olympics. We all know how it works at this point. The whole thing could go up in flames, just like it all did in 2020. But I guess I’m going to think positive about it. Call me Pollyanna if you must. But I don’t think I’m going to predict doom in the pandemic department.
 
In a nutshell, I’m deliberately staying on the positive side. I think we’ll see great performances. I think our US lifters will plant their flag. I think records will fall. I think Covid will muck everything up, like it always has, but I don’t think it’ll shut down the party. I think we’ll have some positive drug tests, but I think/pray it’ll be a situation that doesn’t result in our Olympic removal.
 
After the Games is over, our sport has to get reformed and the IWF must be rebuilt. But that’s a project for the future. Let’s just get through one thing at a time.