IWF World Championships 2018 Wiki | Records | History

The International Weightlifting Federation or IWF is the current international governing body of the general as well as Olympic weightlifting. The International Weightlifting Federation holds its annual competition of weightlifting each year. And this year is no exception, as they are now organizing the IWF World Championships 2018 in Ashgabat, the capital city of Turkmenistan, from 1^st to 10^th November 2018.

Founded in 1905, the governing body of weightlifting currently has its headquarter in Budapest, Hungary. But even before that, the first ever World Weightlifting Championships took place in March 1891 in London. According to the IWF World Championships history, English weightlifter Edward Lawrence Levy has won the tournament that year.

Background of the IWF World Championships 2018

International Weightlifting Federation or IWF was first established as the Fédération Haltéphile International or FHI in 1905. But, the federation changed to its current name between the 1972 and 1976 Summer Olympics. Besides being a member of the International Olympic Committee, Tamás Aján currently holds the presidential chair of the federation.

The IWF currently has five continental federations under its control – Weightlifting Federation of Africa, Asian Weightlifting Federation, European Weightlifting Federation, Oceania Weightlifting Federation, and Pan American Weightlifting Confederation. And according to the IWF World Championships 2018 wiki stats, weightlifters representing all of these five continentals will compete to win the prestigious medals this year.

IWF World Championships 2018 Categories

Weightlifters competed in 15 different categories (8 for males and 7 for females) in the earlier edition of the IWF World Championships. But since this year, the competition will be organized in 20 categories (10 for males and 10 for females) having 3 events (snatch, clean & Jerk, and total) each.

Men weightlifting categories are – 55 kg, 61 kg, 67 kg, 73 kg, 81 kg, 89 kg, 96 kg, 102 kg, 109 kg, and +109 kg. And, women weightlifting categories are – 45 kg, 49 kg, 55 kg, 59 kg, 64 kg, 71 kg, 76 kg, 81 kg, 87kg, and +87 kg.

IWF World Championships statistics [Last 10 editions]

After the first ever World Weightlifting Championships in 1891, the tournament took place for the second time in 1898. The tournament again took a short break from 1899 and 1903. And since then, the tournament was held each year until 1913 before it started again in 1920. The International Weightlifting Federation has organized its annual event each year after that.

However, the weightlifting tournaments held during the 1964, 1968, 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1984 Summer Olympics are counted as the IWF World Championships of that corresponding year. Till 1990, the men’s and women’s edition of the championship was organized in separate venues in separate dates each year. But the federation started the mixed events since 1991. Check out the detailed statistics of the last ten editions of the IWF World Championships:

Year	Dates	Host	Men		Women
Year	Dates	Host	Athletes	Countries	Athletes	Countries
2005	9^th to 17^th November	Qatar Doha, Qatar	169	58	112	42
2006	30^th September to 7^th October	Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic	298	58	186	39
2007	17^th to 26^th September	Chiang Mai, Thailand	355	70	225	53
2009	20^th to 29^th November	Goyang, South Korea	196	57	133	38
2010	17^th to 26^th September	Antalya, Turkey	312	63	203	50
2011	5^th to 13^th November	Paris, France	307	75	212	61
2013	20^th to 27^th October	Wrocław, Poland	168	49	124	37
2014	8^th to 16^th November	Almaty, Kazakhstan	307	62	219	51
2015	20^th to 28^th November	Houston, United States	324	76	261	72
2017	28^th November to 5^th December	Anaheim, United States	176	54	139	44

IWF World Championships All-time Medal Table

China and the Soviet Union are the two main dominant forces at the IWF World Championships each year. But sadly, both of the countries were not able to participate in the last edition of the championship as they faced ban after tested positive of using banned substances. Thailand, on the other hand, has competed last year in their full glory and has achieved 15 medals in total. Here are the top 10 nations having most number of medals in the IWF World Championships all-time table:

Rank	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	165	74	37	276
2	Soviet Union	151	90	33	274
3	Bulgaria	79	82	63	224
4	United States	40	49	31	120
5	Russia	37	47	33	117
6	Austria	32	27	31	90
7	Germany	27	39	30	96
8	Poland	25	38	56	119
9	Iran	21	11	26	58
10	Kazakhstan	15	6	7	28

Multiple medalists in IWF World Championships

Legendary Soviet weightlifter Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev has won the most number of medals at the IWF World Championships. Besides, he set 81 soviet records including 80 new world records in weightlifting during his heydays. Here are the top 10 multiple medalists of the World Weightlifting Championships:

Weightlifter	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
Vasily Alekseyev	Soviet Union	8	0	0	8
Yurik Vardanyan	Soviet Union	7	1	0	8
Naim Süleymanoğlu	Bulgaria / Turkey	7	1	0	8
Josef Grafl	Austria	6	2	0	8
Tommy Kono	United States	6	1	1	8
John Davis	United States	6	1	0	7
Yoshinobu Miyake	Japan	6	0	1	7
David Rigert	Soviet Union	6	0	1	7
Waldemar Baszanowski	Poland	5	5	0	10
Arkady Vorobyov	Soviet Union	5	2	1	8

IWF World Championships 2018 Conclusion

This year, the weightlifters will compete in the state-of-the-art venues in Ashgabat which was originally constructed for the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games (AIMAG). The IWF has also provided financial contribution to its Continental Federations to boost the development of the weightlifting sport. So it is now expected that the IWF World Championships 2018 will deliver a great set of performances in the events. Besides, the fans are also now expecting the rise of some great new weightlifters.