We’re another day closer to this year’s Weightlifting World Championships, which are set to take place in less than three weeks. Yesterday, the IWF shared the final Worlds athlete entry roster, which is composed of nearly 400 athletes from 72 countries including 161 women and 216 men.
To view the full roster of athletes in attendance, then check out this link. Of these athletes, there will be six reigning 2016 Rio Olympic gold medalists who are set to compete, along with athletes who won gold at the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympic Games. A few of these athletes can be found below.
- Kianoush Rostami, Islamic Republic of Iran, 85kg, 2016 Rio Gold
- Sohrab Moradi, Islamic Republic of Iran, 94kg, 2016 Rio Gold
- Behdad Salimi, Islamic Republic of Iran, +105kg, 2012 London Gold
- Hsu Shu-ching, Chinese Taipei, 53kg, 2016 Rio Gold
- Lasha Talakhadze, Georgia, +105kg, 2016 Rio Gold
But these are only a few of the previous years Olympic Champions to keep your eyes out for. Worlds brings the best athletes from every country in attendance. If you’ve missed any of the details and news leading up to this year’s Worlds, then we’ve included some key points below.
Where and When
The World Championships kick off on November 28th and go through December 6th. They’ll be taking place in Anaheim, California at the Anaheim Convention Center. To view the tentative competition schedule, then visit this link.
[If you’re a fan of USA Weightlifting, then check out the final 20 athletes representing USA at this year’s World Championships.]
What’s Happened?
In June 2016, news was first announced about the banning of multiple athletes and countries for violating doping regulations from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. On September 30th 2017, the IWF announced that nine countries would face a one-year suspension from International competition, and that it would take effect in mid-October 2017.
They didn’t explicitly mention Worlds in their original statement, but this ban prohibits the participation of the said nine countries from competing this year. These countries included: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, China, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine.
Feature image from @usa_weightlifting Instagram page.
