issue among the weight lifting community, especially the US weightlifting community.

The US was once a power in weightlifting. Some of the greatest lifters of all time, Paul Anderson, Tommy Kono, are Americans. It’s just that that was many years ago.

Why? One suggested reason is that most of the prospective weightlifters, are off playing football in the NFL. The monetary rewards in weightlifting definitely cannot compare to that of the NFL, or any of the pro sports. Granted, weightlifting is a much safer sport than the NFL.

Another possible reason is that USA Weightlifting has done a pretty piss poor job of marketing the sport / they have done a pretty damn fine job in making it an elitist sport.There’s a pretty prevalent perception that weightlifting is a VERY difficult technical sport, that the lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk are VERY difficult to learn. This leads to many who might be interested in trying them being afraid to do so.

USAW tries to market weightlifting as being VERY distinct from the other strength sports like powerlifting; it tries to market weightlifting more in the soccer / gymnastics category, principally because it is afraid of the steroids association. The problem with this is that by doing so, it ignores very good prospective audience, and future lifters, among strength athletes. By strength athletes, I’m referring to powerlifters, bodybuilders, football players, wrestlers, Strongmen / Strongwomen. It’s probably easier, with the correct marketing, to get a powerlifter, a bodybuilder, a football player, interested in weightlifting, than a soccer player or a swimmer And some weightlifters are pretty elitist: they look down their noses on other strength athletes: powerlifters / bodybuilders, when they should be trying to get those people interested and involved.

As for the use of banned substances, that is a pretty common stereotype that the strength sports have to deal with. But it really isn’t anymore prevalent in them, than in track and field, or cycling. Note, I’m not saying that no one uses.

The roids etc aren’t why countries are good or not. In fact, if they do matter, the US should probably be a superpower in weightlifting.

Money / culture does. For example, back in Communist days, Bulgaria was a superpower in weightlifting, not just winning many medals, but also significantly influencing how weightlifters all over the world trained. Training regimens are still heavily influenced by the Bulgarian methodology. But, without the large amount of financial support that the used to get, the Bulgarians are no longer the dominant force that they were. They have had to resort to selling lifters to the rich gulf Arab countries to obtain money to ensure that their program survies. Similarly with the Russians. Much of the basic concepts in weightlifting training come from the Russians, from the research, and then the teaching of other countries coaches, that they did, back in Communist days. Granted, the Russians themselves were influenced by Paul Anderson. The Russians are still pretty good, but are no longer dominant.

Conversely, the Chinese have become a power, because nowadays, they are probably the closest there is to a communist style state supported system.

In some other countries, like Iran, Turkey, weightlifting is a hugely popular sport. In Germany, there’s a Bundesliga for weightlifting.

US lifters have none of these incentives / motivations.

applies more to the men. The US women are better off, they last won gold in 2000, whereas the men haven’t won gold in decades, partly because the US is one of the pioneers in women’s weightlifting, they played a very major role in getting women’s weightlifting finally into the Olympics.