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Weightlifting

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Olympic weightlifting is perhaps best personified by Turkey's Naim Suleymanoglu.

Dubbed the "Pocket Hercules" Suleymanoglu was not a big man, but he had a big heart, and was immensely strong.

Standing just 140 centimetres tall and weighing in at around 60 kilograms, Suleymanoglu won the under 60kgs gold medal in 1988 with a combined weight over the snatch and clean and jerk of 342.5kgs.

That weight was enough to give him victory by an amazing 30kgs. To prove it was no fluke, the Turk repeated his victories in 1992 and 1996 to become the sport's first three-time gold medallist.

Those sorts of feats have helped make weightlifting one of the Olympic movement's most popular events.

As well as the spectacle of watching diminutive figures like the Pocket Hercules lift such huge weights, spectators are treated to the awesome sight of a 105kgs-plus giant lift the equivalent of a couple of fridges above his head.

Tests of human strength, in one form or another, are probably older than civilisation itself.

The lifting of weights has been used to prepare soldiers for war, and images of men lifting weighty objects, apparently for sport, appear in ancient Egyptian culture.

Similar references to weightlifting have been found in ancient Chinese texts, and men lifting stones have been depicted in Greek carvings.

The first organised weightlifting competitions began in Europe in the late 19th century, and the sport's first world champion was crowned in 1891.

In those unsophisticated days there were no divisions, the world crown went to the man able to lift the most weight, regardless of his own size.

Weightlifting was on the program for the first Games in 1896, as part of athletics, but was left out of the 1900 Games.

It reappeared in 1904 but didn't return to the Olympic fold again until 1920 when it was admitted in its own right.

In those days, Olympic weightlifting incorporated some events which would seem strange today.

The first competitions consisted of one and two-handed lifts with no weight divisions.

But by 1932 five weight divisions had been established and three disciplines made up the competition - press, snatch and clean and jerk.

In 1972 the press was abolished, leaving the snatch and clean and jerk as the sport's two Olympic disciplines.