The Inaugural International Weightlifting Championship: Forging Iron Bonds

On March twenty eighth, eighteen ninety one, the very first international weightlifting competition took place in London, England, and it featured six countries and seven different athletes. And when was the beginning of a sport? How athletics is played to this day? Join us as we dive into this iconic moment on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reees, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. Now, the very first international weightlifting competition took place in London over three days. Now, we don't know all the specifics as this was really early eighteen ninety one, There's very little. There are no pictures, there are no video reporters and all we have to go on was the winners and the people that were there. But we know that the winner of the event was Edward Lawrence Levi, who was a British weightlifter that founded the Amateur Gymnastics Federation in Great Britain. He was also a brewer, a journalist and a mason who was also popular in the political in the political community in Britain. He lifted out of the Birmingham Athletic Club, a private club founded in eighteen sixty six and later led to the formation of the modern Olympics weightlifting where they promoted the National Olympian Games, which is a direct predecessor to the modern Olympics. And we don't know exactly how much he lifted, but everyone agrees he is the first champion. In between the years eighteen ninety one eighteen ninety four, he established fourteen world weightlifting records. He was actually one of the judges for the very first weightlifting event in the Olympics in eighteen ninety six, but he was weigh more than just a weightlifter. He wrote multiple books about health and athletics while helping the Jewish community in Birmingham out of his gymnastics association. He would later retire from weightlifting, but he was still highly involved in the community and would help young weightlifters achieve their goal before passing away in nineteen thirty two, and is often referred to as the father of British weightlifting. Now, this is like the weightlifting we see today where you try to lift a certain amount of poundage one time, and especially Olympics where they do cleans, which is where you lift the weight from the ground over your head. Know. What they did is they would alternate repetitions pressing fifty six or eighty four pounds in each hand. They didn't use the single bar system we're used to seeing today, as the weights they had were very heavy and it was about one hundred and eighty pounds. Most lifters at the time weren't able to lift that over their shoulders or even press it. The most that many could do was just deadlifted, which means picking it up off the ground and setting it back down. I know that the number seems very small to compare to what we lift their day. Be hable to understand that lifting back then was more of a hobby than a skill. They didn't know all the physiology we know today, and they weren't really sure about all that was done for lifting. And actually this first tournament shifted from what they used to do with the circus or Vanville Strongly competitions into a real life competition. But after this they kept it going every now and then, and in eighteen ninety six they actually saw weightlifting and merge in the Olympics as an Olympic sport, giving the sport even more popularity. But after this first weightlifting event. It would be another seven years before they hold another one, and that happened in eighteen ninety eight in Austria, which featured eleven athletes in only three countries. But after that event, they would go on to hold the event more regularly. Thank you for listening to today's Daily Sports History. If you enjoyed this, please follow us on our social media. We are just about everywhere Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, threads, YouTube, wherever you like to socialize online, we'll be there and check us out. We put short videos about every topic so you can see who we're talking about every day and come back tomorrow for more Daily sports history