After being pushed to the brink of elimination, weightlifting has been confirmed for both the 2024 Olympics and 2028 Games in Los Angeles. Paris will host just over 120 athletes across 10 events — one of the smallest presences for any sport this Olympic cycle.
On Jun. 21, 2024, President of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Mohammed Jalood celebrated the sport’s progress over the past few years and wished the Paris Olympians well, saying:
- “It has been a long but very rewarding road for all those trying to qualify and I sincerely congratulate all those lifters … weightlifting provides an important added-value to the Olympic program and we are certain that the fans of our sport will [have] an outstanding experience this summer in France.”
The 18-month qualification period for the 2024 Olympics was simple, straightforward, and downright brutal. These athletes are the cream of the crop; here is the full Paris 2024 weightlifting roster.
[Related: The Best Weightlifting Shoes on the Market]
AIN (Individual Neutral Athletes)
The following athletes will perform under the designation of “Individual Neutral Athletes” (AIN). This provision allows athletes who remain in good standing with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to compete in Paris even if their home countries are prohibited from sending a formalized team. Both Valodzka and Tsikhantsou are from Belarus.
Siuzanna Valodzka
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 242
Yauheni Tsikhantsou
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 400
Tsikhantsou ended the qualifying program on a high with a 400-kilogram total at the World Cup and is a medal contender. “I won’t think ahead, but I’m in a great mood,” he told BarBend.
Team Algeria
No Algerian has ever won an Olympic weightlifting medal. If lone qualifier Bidani is to become the first, he will have to be at his best and hope that at least three others underperform.
Walid Bidani
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 426
Bidani, 13th at the 2016 Rio Olympics, withdrew the day before the Tokyo super-heavyweights because he tested positive for COVID-19. He was out of the top 10 for Paris until his final lift at the World Cup.
Team Armenia
The Armenian contingent is notably missing 2016 Olympic silver medalist and current 109-kilogram Total world record holder Simon Martirosyan, who did not make it to Paris because the shuffling of categories did not suit him. Garik Karapetyan and Varazdat Lalayan, one class lighter and heavier than Martirosyan, respectively, are medal contenders.
Adranik Karapetyan
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 377
Garik Karapetyan
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 401
Garik is a triple Junior World Champion who overtook teammate Gasparyan in the final qualifier in April. He is not related to teammate Andranik Karapetyan.
Varazdat Lalayan
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 463
Lalayan has won his last three qualifiers by a wide margin in Lasha Talakhadze’s absence, making him a strong medal contender in Paris.
Team Australia
Team Australia is the biggest team from Oceania, thanks to winning two continental athlete slots and a top-10 result in the 81-kilogram category for Eileen Cikamatana.
Jacqueline Nichele
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 214
Eileen Cikamatana
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 263
Cikamatana’s best numbers would have made her a medal contender at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, but she was ineligible because of the timing of her nationality switch from Fiji to Australia.
Kyle Bruce
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 336
Team Bahrain
During this Olympic cycle, Lesman Paredes and Gor Minasyan have won 22 medals and set nine continental records despite Paredes’ lengthy absence. Neither Paredes nor Minasyan are natural-born Bahrainians.
Lesman Paredes
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 398
Paredes announced that he will retire after Paris. He set the 96-kilogram snatch world record when he won the 2021 World title, which he retained in 2022 after switching allegiances from Colombia to Bahrain.
Gor Minasyan
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 464
Minasyan first stood on an IWF podium directly below Lasha Talakhadze at the Junior European Weightlifting Championships in 2011, a position he’s repeated countless times in the decade since. Minasyan has Totaled within four kilograms of Talakhadze at the start of the Paris qualification period, but has never beaten him.
Team Belgium
Belgium’s nation’s last weightlifting medal came in 1968 — a streak that Nina Sterckx, who qualified as both a 49-kilogram and 59-kilogram athlete, is hoping to break.
Nina Sterckx
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 193
After spending a good bit of time lifting as a 59-kilogram athlete, Sterckx will have to drop her body weight by 17% for Paris. She placed fifth in Tokyo’s 49-kilogram event as a teenager and won the Junior world title — a first for Belgium — in 2022.
Team Brazil
Apart from being the host nation in 2016, when it had a team of five, Brazil has qualified few weightlifters and has never won a medal in the sport.
Amanda Schott
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 238
Laura Amaro
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 253
Amaro has been to the Olympics before — as a bobsled athlete. “It was at the Youth Winter Olympics in 2016, when I was the only [skeleton bobsled] athlete in Brazil. Then I had to choose between skeleton and weightlifting, and I made the right choice,” Amaro told BarBend.
Team Bulgaria
Despite their dominance in the sport throughout the ‘80s and 90s’, Bulgaria hasn’t had an Olympic Champion since Milen Dobrev in 2004. However, hopes are high for Paris: Bozhidar Andreev has a chance in the 73-kilogram event, and the prodigious Karlos Nasar is the debatable gold medal favorite at 89 kilograms.
Ivan Dimov
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 293
Bozhidar Andreev
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 348
Karlos Nasar
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 396
Despite his rapid ascent to the top of the sport, it’s easy to forget how young Nasar is. When the qualifying period for the last Olympic Games began in Nov. 2018, he was ineligible to participate because Nasar, 14 at the time, was below the minimum age of 15.
By the time the delayed Tokyo Games took place in 2021, Nasar was strong enough to have been a medal contender — and now, after setting six Senior world records, Nasar is heading to Paris as the favorite to win it all.
[Related: Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation Scandal + Impact on Karlos Nasar]
Team Canada
Canada has had two Olympic champions this century; Charron and Christine Girard, who was retroactively awarded a gold medal from London 2012 after the first-placer there was disqualified for doping violations.
Maude Charron
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 236
After winning gold in Tokyo, Charron rethought her decision to pivot from weightlifting to a career in law enforcement, she told BarBend. She joined forces with American coach Spencer Arnold — who shepherds Jourdan Delacruz of Team USA — and closed the qualifying period in third place. She may yet win another Olympic medal before donning her police uniform.
Boady Santavy
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 372
Team China
The world’s most successful Olympic weightlifting team took a record seven gold medals in Tokyo and has won at least five at every Games this century. Keeping up that record in Paris will be harder than ever due to weightlifting’s diminished presence at the Olympics. Regardless, expect Team China to run the board in most weight class events.
Hou Zhihui
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 217
Zhihui, who won gold in this category in 2021, is heading to Paris after out-lifting teammate Jiang Huihua at the IWF World Cup in April by a very slim margin. She praised her support team for giving her the chance of a second Olympic gold. “They always remind me to be happy, stay positive, and smile daily. With a good mood, I feel my training is more effective,” she told BarBend.
Luo Shifang
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 248
Shifang became the first Chinese lifter to hold the 59KG world record in the Total when she finished her qualifying program with a clean and jerk of 140 kilograms and a Total of 248 kilograms at the World Cup. In her downtime, Luo enjoys doing handcrafts: “I don’t want to spend too much time on my cell phone, so handcrafting is a good way to relax,” she told BarBend.
Li Wenwen
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 325
Wenwen finished 37 kilograms clear of runner-up Emily Campbell when she won the Women’s super-heavyweight event in Tokyo. She has the biggest rankings lead — 29 kilograms — in all 10 weight categories, making her the strongest gold-medal favorite in Paris.
An elbow injury at the 2023 World Championships kept Wenwen out of the Asian Games and Qatar Grand Prix. Her World Cup victory on her return was “one of my best performances during these four years (since Tokyo),” she told BarBend.
Li Fabin
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 314
Fabin has won Olympic gold in Tokyo, two World titles, two Asian Championships titles, and the Asian Games in the past four years. He’s also a big fan of tea: “I enjoy drinking it and learning everything about it, including the culture of tea,” he told BarBend.
Shi Zhiyong
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 356
Zhiyong was out of international action for 862 days after suffering a back injury at the 2021 National Games of China. However, Zhiyong rocketed to second in the rankings behind Rizki Juniansyah with a 356-kilogram total at the World Cup.
“I went for it as if it was the last international event in my weightlifting career,” he told BarBend. “I will keep my current attitude (in Paris) and enjoy the Olympic Games — to participate and to enjoy are what I am focusing on now.”
Liu Huanhua
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 413
Huanhua, who bulked from 89KG to 102KG in nine months, is on target to become China’s first male heavyweight Olympic Champion. He finished the qualification period at the top of the rankings and broke two world records at the World Cup in April.
Team Chinese Taipei
Chinese Taipei had three weightlifters in Tokyo who won gold, bronze, and finished fourth. However, based on their performances throughout the qualification period, bettering that cumulative result looks unlikely.
Fang Wan-Ling
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 192
Kuo Hsing-Chun
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 232
A true veteran of the sport, Hsing-Chun’s “golden year” was 2021, when she set world records on snatch and Total, won an Olympic gold medal, and even became the first weightlifter to make the front cover of Vogue magazine.
Chen Wen-Huei
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 246
Team Colombia
Colombia has been one of the highest achievers in Pan-American weightlifting in the past two decades. Colombia has won at least one medal at every Olympic Games this century and has a good chance of extending that run of success.
Yenny Alvarez
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 234
Mari Sanchez
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 244
Sanchez’s qualification for her first Olympics at the age of 32 is a career pinnacle. She was a silver medallist at last year’s Pan American Games at this weight.
Luis Mosquera
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 337
Luis Mosquera won bronze in Rio during the 69-kilogram event, and thought he had won at 67 in Tokyo after the jury overturned a no-lift decision to give him the lead, but China’s Chen Lijun jumped 12 kilograms to beat him there. He was off the platform for 15 months until last September because of hand, adductor, and shoulder injuries, and only just made it to Paris.
Yeison Lopez
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 392
Lopez enjoyed a stellar early career, winning his first 11 international competitions. He finished second to Bulgaria’s Nasar at the World Cup and set a snatch world record in the process.
Team Cuba
Three Cuban weightlifters had chances to make the top 10 at the World Cup, but all three — Yeniuska Mirabal (71KG), Arley Calderon (61KG), and Olfides Saez (89KG) — missed critical clean & jerk attempts throughout the qualification period. Cuba will send only one weightlifter to compete in Paris.
Ayamey Medina
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 254
Team Czech Republic
The Czech Republic’s lone Paris weightlifter, Kamil Kucera, was called to action after an AIN athlete from Belarus was deemed ineligible. At 39, Kucera will be the oldest male weightlifting athlete in Paris.
Kamil Kucera
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 411
Team Dominican Republic
Zaccarias Bonnat and Crismery Santana’s two Olympic medals in Tokyo were firsts for the Dominican Republic in weightlifting. Bonnat has since been suspended for doping, but Santana will be seen in Paris.
Beatriz Piron
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 191
Yudelina Mejia
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 252
Crismery Santana
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 263
Santana has gained more than 20 kilograms in body weight since winning bronze in the 87-kilogram category in Tokyo. She held onto her top-10 place despite a bomb-out and an injury-forced withdrawal from the final two qualifying events.
Team Ecuador
Dajomes siblings Angie and Neisi have boosted weightlifting’s prominence in Ecuador. Neisi was introduced to the sport at age 11 by her late brother Javier and became her country’s first female Olympic Champion in any sport in Tokyo. Younger sister and snatch record-holder Angie placed sixth in Tokyo.
Angie Palacios-Dajomes
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 261
Palacios-Dajomes heads to Paris as both a Tokyo Olympian and the only non-Asian holder of a current women’s Senior world record — a snatch of 121 kilograms — as of the closure of the qualification period.
Neisi Dajomes
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 269
In Paris, Dajomes will attend her third Olympic Games in three different weight categories. The 76-kilogram Olympic Champion from Tokyo was in danger of missing Paris altogether after an underperformance at the 2024 Pan American Championships in February, but dominated at the IWF World Cup in April to secure her ticket and oust teammate Tamara Salazar from the rankings.
Lisseth Ayovi
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 276
Team Egypt
Egypt remains Africa’s most dominant nation in weightlifting. Sara Samir was the first female lifter from an Arab country to win an Olympic medal when she took bronze at Rio 2016. In Paris, she has a fair chance of becoming the first Arab female Olympic Champion in weightlifting.
Neama Said
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 246
Since winning silver at the 2018 Youth Olympics, she has added Youth, Junior, and senior world titles at 59KG, 64KG, and 71KG. She has not lifted at her Olympic weight of 71KG since September last year but could be a medal contender if fully fit. She has finished outside the top three only once in 15 career competitions.
Sara Samir
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 268
Halima Sedky
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 275
Karim Abokahla
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 381
Abdelrahman Elsayed
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 433
Team Estonia
Estonia will send one weightlifter to compete in Paris 2024 — an Olympic return for super-heavyweight Mart Seim, who last competed at the Games in Rio 2016 and finished seventh.
Mart Seim
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 410
Team France
Despite hosting the Olympics, Team France has a long road to the podium this summer. Notably, these weightlifting athletes have attended two training camps in China in preparation for their performances on the Olympic stage.
Dora Tchakounte
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 224
Tchakounte missed her final clean & jerk in Tokyo and finished fourth there. She snatched over 100 kilograms for the first time at this year’s World Cup, posting career bests across the board and confirming her Paris ticket in the process. The Cameroonian native gained French citizenship in 2007.
Marie Fegue
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 245
Fegue closed the qualification period with eligibility in both the 71 and 81-kilogram events. She won one European title at 71 kilograms and may have improved enough to contend for the silver or bronze medal.
Romain Imadouchene
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 369
Imadouchene made only one Total during the qualification period in the 89-kilogram class, but it was good enough to book him a ticket to Paris.
Bernardin Kingue Matam
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 324
Paris will be Matam’s fourth Olympic appearance. He failed to register a Total at London 2012, placed seventh in Rio weighing 69 kilograms, and bombed out in Tokyo at 67 kilograms as well.
Team Georgia
All eyes will be on Lasha Talakhadze, two-time Olympic Champion and the indisputably strongest male weightlifter in history, as he attempts to win a third Olympic gold. Paris is likely to be his farewell to the Olympic Games.
Shota Mishvelidze
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 298
Irakli Chkeidze
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 391
Lasha Talakhadze
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 474
Talakhadze has had 18 straight international event wins since November 2015 and did not miss a single competition attempt in nearly four years between November 2018 and June 2022.
Within that same time, he set 21 world records and spoke of becoming the first man to Total 500 kilograms. Yet there are doubts: he sat out the last two qualifiers because of a “minor knee trauma,” according to coach Giorgi Asanidze. He will have been off the platform for 328 days when he lifts in Paris.
[Related: The Best Lifting Straps for Snatches]
Team Great Britain
Triple World Champion Louis Martin, widely regarded as his country’s greatest-ever weightlifter, is alone in having won medals for Britain at two Olympic Games (1960 and 1964). Campbell, Britain’s only female medalist, may match his Olympic achievements in Paris.
Emily Campbell
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 287
Knee surgery and a back injury disrupted Campbell’s qualifying program after she had started well at the 2022 World Championships with a career-high 287 kilogram Total — the only time she has lifted more than her 283-kilogram result which won her an historic silver in Tokyo. Now, Campbell is back at full fitness and is reportedly training well for Paris, sources tell BarBend.
Team India
The world’s most populous country pins its hopes on Mirabai Chanu, a silver medallist in Tokyo who qualified for Paris as India’s sole weightlifting athlete.
Mirabai Chanu
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 200
Chanu has long battled a series of back, shoulder, and wrist injuries that even affected her second-place finish in Tokyo during the Women’s 49-kilogram event.
“We want [Chanu] to peak at the right time. We know she can do much better [in Paris],” Team India head coach Vijay Sharma told BarBend.
Team Indonesia
Indonesia likely has high hopes in the two lightest Men’s events, 61- and 73-kilogram, with Eko Yuli Irawan (ranked fourth in the qualification period) and Rizki Juniansyah (first), respectively.
Nurul Akmal
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 260
Eko Yuli Irawan
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 300
Irawan is an Olympic veteran. He won bronze at the 2008 and 2012 Games, plus silver in 2016 and 2020. Irawan will attempt to do something in Paris no weightlifter in history has ever achieved; win five straight Olympic medals.
Rizki Juniansyah
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 365
Junianayah stunned his seemingly unstoppable teammate Rahmat Erwin Abdullah — and everybody else who was watching — when he broke the world record Total to qualify for Paris at April’s IWF World Cup.
Juniansyah’s coach and brother-in-law Triyatno tells BarBend that Juniansyah has “not yet reached his potential.”
[Read More: Ego Cost Rahmat Erwin Abdullah a Gold Medal at the 2024 Olympics]
Team Iran
Iran has won 20 weightlifting medals at the Olympics, all by men. Iran’s women — allowed into the sport in 2018 — might improve enough to qualify for the next Olympics in 2028. For Paris, the Iranian banner will be carried by two men.
Mir Mostafa Javadi
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 384
Mostafa Javadi was the surprise winner of the 2023 world title, defeating China’s 89-kilogram rankings leader Li Dayin.
Ali Davoudi
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 454
Davoudi is the tallest lifter in Paris at 1.98m (6ft 6in). He was second in Tokyo on 441kg, and having clean & jerked more than 250 kilograms for the first time in his final qualifier, he is looking forward to Paris. “The qualifying race was always very stressful for me. From now on, I will be able to train more easily,” he told BarBend.
Team Iraq
The one Olympic medal Iraq has won came in weightlifting, a bronze in 1960. Lone Paris 2024 Iraqi representative Ali Ammar Yusur is well aware that it has been a long wait.
Ali Ammar Yusur
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 427
Yusuf is one of weightlifting’s most exciting young talents. His 198-kilogram snatch at last year’s World Championships, a few weeks after his 19th birthday, was a Junior world record.
“I would like to win a medal in Paris, of course,” he told BarBend. “But I will have four years to prepare for the next Olympics. In 2028, it has to be gold.”
Team Italy
Italy’s three medals in Tokyo amounted to more than any other European team, but many of their weightlifters failed to qualify for Paris. As such, the Italians are not likely to exceed that number in 2024, though both of their male athletes are medal contenders.
Lucrezia Magistris
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 217
Four bomb-outs and only nine good lifts over the course of seven qualifying competitions (totaling 42 possible successful lifts) initially left Magistris out of contention for Paris.
But when others opted out of this category, she found herself in the top 10 thanks to her 217-kilogram Total result in Dec. 2023 at the Grand Prix II.
Sergio Massidda
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 302
Massidda, from Sardinia, remembers when he made his international debut as a 15-year-old at the 2017 World Youths. He Totaled 166 kilograms at his first-ever weightlifting meet.
Flash forward and had Massidda clean & jerked more than that Total when he won the 67-kilogram gold medal at the World Cup. He’s heading to Paris to fight for a podium position against China, the United States, Georgia, and Indonesia.
Antonino Pizzolato
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 380
Less than a year after his 81-kilogram bronze medal in Tokyo, Pizzolato set a clean & jerk world record at 89 kilograms. But repeated injuries sidelined Pizzolatto for 17 months while other athletes gained ground. Pizzolatto’s jerk record has since been passed by multiple other athletes, but he’s still in the conversation in Paris.
Team Japan
Japan will send two men and one woman to compete in Paris this summer. Mikiko Ando, Team Japan’s lone medalist from Tokyo 2020 who won bronze in the 59-kilogram event, didn’t make the cut. Realistically, only Masanori Miyamoto is contending for a podium position this time around.
Rira Suzuki
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 197
Masanori Miyamoto
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 350
Miyamoto would have won a home medal in Tokyo if he had made his final clean & jerk attempt at 196 kilograms. He improved his best total at the World Cup and could contribute to the 73-kilogram podium being occupied exclusively by athletes from Asia.
Eishiro Murakami
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 421
“Tank” Murakami is well known for his phenomenal leg strength as well as his shouting and fist-pumping demeanor on the platform. “I want to compete in a manner that conveys the joy of weightlifting to the viewers,” “Tank” told BarBend after moving into the top 10 at the Asian Championships in February.
Team Korea
Team Korea had two fourth-place finishes and no medals in Tokyo. Federation president Choi Sung-Yong expects better in Paris. Of his expectations, he told BarBend, “one medal for the men and one for the women.” Jang Yeonhak and Park Hye-Jeong are the best hopes for the team.
Kim Suhyeon
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 256
Thrice at major competitions — two World Championships and the Tokyo Olympics — Kim bombed out of clean & jerks. She nearly did it again at the World Cup, which would have cost her a place in Paris, but the jury ruled her final attempt a good lift after a review.
Park Hye-Jeong
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 296
Super-heavyweight Hye-Jeong felt “indescribable emotions” after making a career-best Total at the World Cup this April only a week after her mother’s passing, she told BarBend. “I am determined to give my best at the Olympics, not only for myself but also for my mother.”
Bak Joohyo
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 345
Yu Dongju
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 375
Jang Yeonhak
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 399
Team Latvia
Ritvars Suharevs — one of two men in history to outlift China’s Shi Zhiyong — is the lone representative of Team Latvia in Paris this year.
Ritvars Suharevs
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 341
After over a decade in the sport, Suharevs has trudged on despite a series of injuries including surgery on both shoulders. He placed sixth at the last Olympics in the 81-kilogram division.
Team Madagascar
A lengthy training camp in China strengthened the chances of two Olympic hopefuls from Madagascar. Rosina Randafiarison made the cut and will be Madagascar’s sole representative from the country.
Rosina Randafiarison
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 172
Randafiarison claimed Madagascar’s first World Championships medal last September at her preferred weight of 45 kilograms. She qualified in the 49-kilogram division despite struggling to bulk up and fully fill out the category.
Team Malaysia
Aniq Kasdan got the better of team-mate Aznil Bidin in a head-to-head between him and his teammate throughout the qualification period. Malaysia was banned from Tokyo in weightlifting because of multiple doping violations.
Aniq Kasdan
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 296
Team Marshall Islands
The group of islands between Hawaii and Australia has strong ties to the United States, which contributed to Mattie Sasser lifting for both nations over the last few years. Sasser was the flag-bearer at Rio 2016 for the Marshall Islands, a country that has never won a medal in any sport.
Mattie Sasser
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 216
Sasser finished 11th in the old 58-kilogram category as a teenager at Rio 2016. She then switched to Team USA a year later and moved up to 64 kilograms, winning silver at the 2019 Pan American Games.
Sasser still lives in the States but reverted to her homeland to get a better chance of qualifying for Paris, taking on coaching from Julius Naranjo, husband of Tokyo Olympic Champion Hidilyn Diaz, who helped her across the line.
Team Mexico
Tokyo Olympian Ana Ferrer finished strongly after struggling to cut to 49 kilograms but she fell three kilograms short; teammate Janeth Gomez qualified alone.
Janeth Gomez
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 223
Team Moldova
Moldova had several “almosts” during the Paris qualification period. Tudor Bratu was one kilogram outside the top 10 at 102 kilograms, and Tokyo Olympian Elena Erighina could not make it after dropping down to 81KG.
Marin Robu
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 378
Robu finished eighth in Tokyo in the 73-kilogram event. Since then, he’s moved up two weight categories to 89 kilograms and has had a rough go throughout the qualification cycle, bombing out four separate times.
Team Mongolia
In Tokyo, lone qualifier “Ankha” Munkhjantsan was close to winning Mongolia’s first weightlifting medal. She finished fourth despite making only two good lifts and is looking to better her chances in Paris.
Ankhtsetseg Munkhjantsan
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 243
Team New Zealand
At Tokyo 2020, super-heavyweight Laurel Hubbard made Olympics history — and drew significant media attention — by competing as the first openly-transgender woman athlete at the Olympics. She retired from the sport following her performance; the New Zealand banner will be carried solely by Men’s super-heavyweight David Liti this time around.
David Liti
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 413
Team Nigeria
Both women who qualified to represent Nigeria in Paris in weightlifting started out in football (soccer) before switching sports. Nigeria has won two Olympic medals in weightlifting, both by women.
Rafiatu Lawal
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 227
Joy Eze
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 239
As a multi-sport athlete, Eze wants to become a superstar in the WWE after her weightlifting career is over, she told BarBend. A shoulder injury during a training camp might have ended her chances, but she was in good shape at the World Cup and booked her Paris ticket as a result.
Team Norway
No Scandinavian nation has ever had a female weightlifting champion at the Olympics. Solfrid Koanda will have many supporters in Paris as she is the gold-medal contender for this Games in the Women’s 81-kilogram event.
Solfrid Koanda
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 266
At the time of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Koanda was working full-time as an electrician, a trade she qualified in before she realized how much talent she had for weightlifting. She made her first international appearance aged 22 and, within three years, had become Norway’s first world champion for 50 years.
Koanda was ranked sixth in the super-heavyweights and competed only once at her Olympic weight of 81 kilograms, but it was enough to secure her ticket to Paris.
Team Papua New Guinea
Team Papua New Guinea has had at least one lifter at every Olympics this century, thanks largely to the efforts of Dika Toua.
Morea Baru
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 281
Baru started his international career in 2009, nine years after cousin and fellow Olympian, Toua.
Team Philippines
Hidilyn Diaz became a national hero when her victory in Tokyo made her the first Olympic gold medalist in any sport for the Philippines. Diaz did not make it to Paris, where attention will switch to John Ceniza’s attempt to become his nation’s first male weightlifting medallist.
Elreen Ando
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 228
Vanessa Sarno
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 249
John Ceniza
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 300
“It’s my dream to be the first man to win an Olympic weightlifting medal for the Philippines,” Ceniza told BarBend after he finished qualifying in style. He improved his total by 20 kilograms from the first qualifying meet to the last. With a little more improvement, his dream could come true.
Team Poland
Poland has had weightlifters at every Olympic Games since 1948 (save for the multinational boycott of the ‘84 games in Los Angeles) — a streak that may have been broken if not for the surprise performance of Weronika Zielinska.
Weronika Zielinska
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 241
Zielinska, a former heptathlete, got lucky. An extra Paris slot became available after all five continents were represented in the 81-kilogram top 10, but four athletes ranked higher than herself were not selected by their respective countries.
Team Qatar
Tokyo was a landmark Olympics for Qatar, where Meso Hassona won the nation’s inaugural gold medal.
Meso Hassona
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 400
Hassona lifted 402 kilograms in the Total during the 96-kilogram event in Tokyo to win the gold medal, but failed to match that weight for two full years despite bulking up. Hassona also withdrew from the final qualifier event, the IWF World Cup, in April to nurse a minor hip injury. Come May 2024, Hassona reported he was “feeling good” about his rehab plan ahead of Paris.
Team Romania
Multiple doping offenses cost Romania its place in Tokyo just when star performer Loredana Toma was in top form. She’ll be taking to the Olympic stage in Paris, though with worse odds of making it to the podium than she’d have had in Tokyo.
Mihaela Valentina Cambei
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 199
Cambei is a social media superstar after winning two European titles on her way to qualifying for Paris. Only one European woman has ever won an Olympic medal in a women’s lightweight weightlifting event — Cambei is capable of becoming the second.
[Related: The Best Weightlifting Apps]
Loredana Toma
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 256
Toma is a two-time World Champion, owns six European Championships titles, and is one of only two women from the European region to hold a Senior world record in weightlifting.
Team Samoa
The two Samoan athletes heading to Paris to compete in weightlifting were also qualified for the same event in Tokyo three years ago, but did not attend due to issues pertaining to COVID-19.
Iuniarra Sipaia
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 267
Don Opeloge
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 391
Team Syria
Super-heavyweight Man Asaad became Syria’s first-ever weightlifting medallist when he finished third in Tokyo and is looking to repeat similarly this summer.
Man Asaad
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 445
Team Thailand
13 of Thailand’s 14 Olympic weightlifting medals have been won by women. Thailand was banned from Tokyo 2020 because of its issues with doping-related infractions, but has not had any violations since 2018.
Surodchana Khambao
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 200
Chaidee Duangaksorn
- Weight Class: +102KG
- Best Total: 286
Theerapong Silachai
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 299
Weeraphon Wichuma
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 349
Team Tunisia
Tunisia will see only one athlete in the Paris weightlifting events. Karem Ben Hnia qualified alone after Aymen Bacha’s effort petered out.
Karim Ben Hnia
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 332
Team Turkey
For the first time since 1968 (save for the boycotted Games in ‘80), Turkey will field only one male athlete in weightlifting.
Mohammed Furkan Ozbek
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 341
Team Turkmenistan
In Tokyo 2020, Polina Guryeva won Turkmenistan’s first Olympic medal in any sport but did not qualify for Paris. The country may not have had any Olympic presence in weightlifting Paris if not for a strong last-minute effort by Davranbek Hasanbayev at the World Cup this spring.
Davranbek Hasanbayev
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 392
Hasanbayev had perhaps the most spectacular last-chance performance among 600 lifters who tried to qualify for Paris. Hasanbayev jumped 18 places from 26th to eighth in the rankings at the World Cup in April.
Team Ukraine
Though the Russia-Ukraine war continued to rage throughout 2024, Ukraine made efforts to field successful weightlifting teams until the closure of the qualification period. However, only one of their athletes made the cut for Paris.
Kamila Konotop
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 236
Team United States
Qualifying five athletes was a remarkable feat for Team USA in a tough qualifying system — so tough that Tokyo silver medalist Kate Vibert-Davis did not make the team despite ranking high enough to be selected in two weight categories.
“It’s incredible that our talent pool is so deep I can be in the top 10 in two weight classes and still not make it,” Vibert-Davis told BarBend after the World Cup in February. “It’s a reflection of how amazing this sport is in the USA.”
Jourdan Delacruz
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 200
Team USA hoped for a medal from Delacruz in Tokyo. She bombed out in clean and jerk, an experience that has been, “the hardest challenge to overcome … it felt like I climbed all the way up to the top of the mountain and then fell back down,” she told BarBend.
Olivia Reeves
- Weight Class: 71KG
- Best Total: 268
Reeves says she will continue doing what she has done for the past two years — training less than others do because it suits her and going on to the platform full of confidence. It worked so well in qualifying that she improved her total by 23 kilograms from the first competition to the last.
Mary Theisen-Lappen
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 283
This will likely be Theisen-Lappen’s only chance at Olympic glory. She started late in weightlifting after years in track and field as a shot putter and coach. To have a realistic chance of a medal, Theisen-Lappen must snatch at least 120 kilograms, a feat which she has done only twice.
Hampton Morris
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 303
Morris became the first American to set a Senior Men’s world record since 1969 at the World Cup in April. Coached by his “super proud” father, Tripp, Morris holds world records at Youth, Junior, and Senior levels.
He improved his best total by more than 10% between the start and end of qualifying for Paris. “There’s no ceiling for him,” said Mike Gattone, Director of Performance & Coaching Education at USA Weightlifting.
Wes Kitts
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 388
Kitts claimed a Continental slot as the highest-placed Pan-American lifter. He’s heading to Paris as the only member of Team USA to have already made a Total at the Olympics. Kitts finished eighth in Tokyo in the 109-kilogram event.
Team Uzbekistan
Uzbek superstar weightlifter Ruslan Nurudinov struggled to make weight in the 102-kilogram event and could not exceed younger teammate and 2020 Olympic Champion Akbar Djuraev. Djuraev would have been the lone Uzbek weightlifter in Paris save for a last-minute qualification by Regina Adashbaeva.
Regina Adashbaeva
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 243
Akbar Djuraev
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 400
The 109-kilogram 2020 Olympic Champion had to lose nearly 25 kilograms of body weight in less than a year when he abandoned plans to qualify in the Men’s super-heavyweight category.
His sole appearance in the 102-kilogram class earned him a win at the 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships. There, Djuraev told BarBend, “In Paris I want to snatch 190 kilograms and clean & jerk 235 kilograms.”
Team Venezuela
Qualifying five athletes is a significant achievement for a nation with a growing reputation. “This is our strongest team in history,” said Keydomar Vallenilla-Sanchez, one of two Venezuelan silver medallists from Tokyo.
Katherin Echandia
- Weight Class: 49KG
- Best Total: 193
Anyelin Venegas
- Weight Class: 59KG
- Best Total: 229
Naryury Perez
- Weight Class: +81KG
- Best Total: 267
Julio Mayora
- Weight Class: 73KG
- Best Total: 339
Keydomar Vallenilla-Sanchez
- Weight Class: 89KG
- Best Total: 385
Team Vietnam
Five lifters entered the qualifying period for Vietnam, but they missed so many lifts — eight bomb-outs between the five — that only one made it to Paris.
Trinh Van Vinh
- Weight Class: 61KG
- Best Total: 294
2024 Olympics Weightlifting Refugee Team
The IOC named two weightlifters in its multi-sport team of 36 refugees for Paris, in addition to the quota of 120 athletes. Here are the two weightlifting athletes on the Paris 2024 refugee team:
Yekta Jamali
- Weight Class: 81KG
- Best Total: 225
Romiro Mora
- Weight Class: 102KG
- Best Total: 359
2024 Olympics Weightlifting Schedule
While the 2024 Olympics will kick off on Jul. 26, 2024, weightlifting events won’t begin for another 10 days. Here’s a full breakdown of the weightlifting event schedule for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games:
[Related: The Best Barbells for Olympic Lifting]
Wednesday, August 7
- 9:00AM: Men 61KG
- 1:30PM: Women 49KG
Thursday, August 8
- 9:00AM: Women 59KG
- 1:30PM: Men 73KG
Friday, August 9
- 9:00AM: Men 89KG
- 1:30PM: Women 71KG
Saturday, August 10
- 5:30AM: Men 102KG
- 10:00AM: Women 81KG
- 2:30PM: Men +102KG
Sunday, August 11
- 5:30AM: Women +81KG
More Weightlifting News
- Interview: The “Must-Have” Items in Mattie Rogers’ Gym Bag
- Report: 18 Weightlifters Caught Doping in 2023
- Opinion: Why Weightlifting Sucks to Watch in 2024
Editor’s Note: BarBend is the Official Media Partner of USA Weightlifting. The two organizations maintain editorial independence unless otherwise noted on specific content projects.
Disclaimer: Brian Oliver is an independent correspondent for BarBend. The views and opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect his own. Oliver is not directly affiliated with any of BarBend’s existing media partnerships.
Featured Image: Weightlifting House / @weightlifting_house
