The Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games will kick off on Friday, July 26, 2024, in Paris, France. Weightlifting will be one of the 32 sports featured at those Games, but many of the weight categories will be significantly different. Rather than 14 weight categories like there were at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, there will only be 10 in Paris. The updated categories proposed by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) in December 2021 and accepted by the International Olympic Committee on Friday, April 1, 2022, are as follows:
2024 Paris Olympic Games | Weight Categories
The men’s and women’s divisions each receive five weight categories:
Men’s Weightlifting
- 61 Kilograms
- 73 Kilograms
- 89 Kilograms
- 102 Kilograms
- +102 Kilograms
Women’s Weightlifting
- 49 Kilograms
- 59 Kilograms
- 71 Kilograms
- 81 Kilograms
- +81 Kilograms
The weight categories that remained intact from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are the Men’s 61-kilograms and 73-kilograms, and the Women’s 49-kilograms and 59-kilograms. For reference, the categories that are not returning in Paris from Tokyo are the Men’s 81-kilograms, 96-kilograms, 109-kilograms, and +109-kilograms, and the women’s 64-kilograms, 76-kilograms, 87-kilograms, and +87-kilograms.
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Aside from the superheavyweight categories in both the Men’s and Women’s divisions, the weight categories for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games have been competitive categories in elite competitions globally since 2018 when the IWF approved new weight categories. A total of 120 weightlifters will compete in Paris — a drop from 196 in Tokyo, and a further drop from the 260 who competed at the 2012 London Games and 2016 Rio Games.
Following the McLaren report, which revealed financial corruption within the IWF, and the IWF’s subsequent lack of sufficient governance changes in the eyes of the IOC, weightlifting received a larger athlete quota reduction than any other sport in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games program — a loss of 76 spots. Per USA Weightlifting (USAW), the 2024 Paris Games will feature the fewest number of weightlifters since the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games.
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2024 Paris Olympic Games Schedule
The Opening Ceremony will occur on July 26, 2024. All weightlifting competition is confirmed to occur from Aug. 7-11, 2024, via the following schedule (all times EST):
Aug. 7-9, 2024
- Sessions will be held at 9:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.
Aug 10, 2024
- Sessions will be held at 5:30 a.m., 10 a.m., and 2:30 p.m.
Aug. 11, 2024
- Sessions will be held on at 11:30 a.m.
Weightlifting will be among the final six sports to award medals during the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, Aug. 11, 2024. This article will be updated with specific weight categories are assigned to each session.
Note: BarBend is the Official Media Partner of USA Weightlifting. Unless otherwise specified on certain content, the two organizations maintain editorial independence.
Featured image: @iwfnet on Instagram
