Weightlifting will not have an expanded presence at the 2028 Olympics, according to an updated Games programme published Apr. 9, 2025.
Despite what International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) President Mohammed Jalood has considered "great strides" in reforming the sport's image before Olympic governance, this news indicates weightlifting remains under scrutiny for policy failures which initially precluded its admittance into the 2028 Olympics.
- Remind Me: Weightlifting was initially left off the 2028 itinerary in late 2021, while the International Olympic Committee (IOC) outlined a "potential pathway" for its inclusion should the IWF make sufficient reforms. The sport was confirmed in Oct. 2023.
Barring changes to the programme, the 2028 Olympics will showcase the same number of weightlifting athletes and events — 120 across 5 men's and women's categories — as were on display in Paris last summer.
Weightlifting at the 2028 Olympics
The 2024 Olympics represented weightlifting's most constrained presence at a Games event in the sport's modern history. Despite broadly successful reforms within the IWF — zero weightlifters were sanctioned for failing a drug test in Paris — it appears Los Angeles will suffer a similar fate.
The number of weightlifting Olympians has dramatically fallen at the Games in recent years...
- Sydney 2000: 246
- Athens 2004: 249
- Beijing 2008: 253
- London 2012: 260
- Rio 2016: 260
- Tokyo 2020: 196
- Paris 2024: 122
...as a consequence of bureaucratic failures within the IWF to police its athletes' rampant drug abuse.
The IWF, however, has made substantial progress in curtailing performance-enhancing drug use in recent years. On Mar. 26, the International Testing Agency and IWF jointly reported on the "improvement" in testing protocols and athlete adherence, which have yielded substantial results in the wake of the sport's low point in the late 2010s.
- In the Rearview: The now-famous McLaren Report, published in 2020, detailed extensive corruption within IWF governance, including financial crimes perpetrated by then-president Tamas Aján.
The IWF's Gambit for the 2028 Olympics
At the 2024 IWF Congress in Manama, Bahrain, officials bet big on weightlifting receiving additional weight class events at the 2028 Olympics, according to on-site reports.
As part of their gambit, the IWF also announced a reshuffling of the sport's competitive weight categories, which takes effect this June.
- One Big Thing: New weight categories this summer means there are only a handful of opportunities to set new world records before the book shuts. For Europe's finest, that chance is right around the corner.
There are substantial gaps in bodyweight between some of the new categories, as the total number of classes for each gender are consolidated from 10 to 8.
With five classes on the docket for the 2028 Olympics, athletic talent will likely corral into the Games-recognized divisions as occurred throughout Paris qualification.
It is as of now unclear which five of the new weight classes will be selected for each gender at the 2028 Olympics. It may look something like:
- Men: 60KG, 71KG, 88KG, 110KG, +110KG
- Women: 48KG, 58KG, 69KG, 86KG, +86KG
If things shake out this way, Olympic hopefuls who exist in the vast liminal space between divisions (a 22-kilogram gap between the Men's 88 and 110-kilo classes would be the largest in modern Olympic history) may find themselves displaced from a viable path to qualification.
In short, the IOC's decision is a blow to weightlifting's positive trajectory in recent years, at least at the Olympic Games. Elsewhere, at least, things are a bit brighter; weightlifting was recently added to the programme for the European Games beginning in 2027.
