I think this is a good topic to get some debate going. Forget the steroid stuff. We have the best athletes in the world why can’t we beat Europe or Asia in Olympic lifting?
I’ll throw out one of my opinions. Americans do not work on maximal strength enough. I see guys that have great skill and technique but they will never total over 300. I see guys who have very skillfull lifts and maybe a good squat but they could’nt do a good morning with 90kilos without breaking in half. I look at the Europeans and most of them are extremely thick throught their bodies. And then I look at the Americans and they are way to skinny for their weightclasses. Niku Vlad could RDL about 600 pounds and Taranenko could old style press 230 kilos.
I do not know enough about it to say if American lifters in general are weak, but it seems to me that Shane Hammon, who is, at least so far, not a great lifter, is strong as fuck (1000 pound squat when he was like 18, and it was a fairly deep squat too).
At least one reason I can think of is that few Americans care about olympic weightlifting, which means that our lifters come from a relatively small genetic pool. Our best big athletes go into pro-football, and I get the feeling that little guys in this country do think much of themselves as strength athletes. There is little motivation here for someone to work really hard at o-lifting, besides the rewards of the sport itself, and, while this may be what inspires the best lifters, something else has to get them into the sport in the first place.
That said, the reasons I have given for our poor performance in o-lifting are kind of uninteresting, and I would much rather hear about problems with our methods of training from people who know more about this than me.
First off I think Floobadoo is right. You don’t really have that much emphasise on OL in the states. Thats why you are better at say Baseball. If a country concentrates on a particular sport then it is no wonder they will excel at it. Look at the chinese and table tennis!
You will never be any good at Soccer or Rugby because those sports are not popular. All the good athletes in Brazil play Soccer.
And I take issue with 'We have the best athletes in the world ’ Depends what sport we are talking about. You don’t have too many great long distance runners do you?
Exactly, I agree with everyone else, no national emphasis means limited results. That’s why we had the best basketball players in the world for a long time and the Olympics were a joke. But now as basketball is becoming more popular world wide, what do you see an explosion of in the draft? European and Russian born players. It is ever increasing that we will not dominate basketball in the international competition either.
Lack of participation in olympic weightlifting (small pool of athletes) Yes I agree that many football players would be good lifters but that would only be in the heavy classes.
Lack of motivation. By this I mean the standard of living is high in North America and weightlifting participation will in most cases will lower this level. (lack of funding, sponsorship in N.A. for oly lifting) In Asia and Europe standard of lifing is increased by participating in state run oly lifting programs.
Lack of strength. The high level lifters of other countries are STRONG! I watched lifters in the training hall from last years worlds days away from competing and they were doing heavy squats, pulls eg. A Belorussian 85 kg lifter front squatting 245kg a few days out between snatches and C&J’s.
Why do we say that America has the best atheletes? Well if you look at the Olympics as a guide for greatness, you will see that the United States consistently produces gold medals, or atleast some impressive results. As a side note, I went to the world freestyle wrestling championships in NYC and saw some impressive results from the USA despite the fact that we don’t even have that form of wrestling in college or high school in America. Additionally, there is little if any compensation for good wrestlers in the US.
I’m doing a search for the country that won the most gold medals right now. If someone knows please inform us. I’m willing to bet that it is the US.
I hope to hell we have won more. Look at our facilities and our overall wealth as a nation. If you want some interesting stats look at the numbers of the Soviet and East German athletes in the Friendship Games of 1984 as compared to those of the Americans in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Anyway, there are great athletes from everywhere, so lets start a different discussion.
And another thought, what do we consider an actual Olympic event? I mean I know that basketball is in the Olympics, but hey, so is ballroom dancing. Are these real Olymic events? Not really. It just gets worse and worse adding sports and marketing them to the public as “Olympic Events”
UB07,
Would that be the country with the most golds in total, or the most per capita? Are you going to include Summer and Winter Olympics? (Paralympics anyone?)
Bet old East Germany would be near the top (yes I can already hear “government sponsored drug abuse”)for a per capita count. Australia would be fairly high too. Basically what I’m saying is that it ain’t simple to compare “athletes” without defining your terms.
Lance Armstrong would certainly qualify as an (American) athlete but how about Hawaian Sumo wrestlers?
The best freestyle wrestler in the world is Canadian Danial Igali(sp)who won gold in 2000.
The Soviets hold the most gold records. Many of the golds the Americans won was in 1984 the boycotted games. Most records set in the 84 games were surpassed by the Soviets in the “Friendship” games in Moscow later the same year.
I am confused about the supposed weakness of our o-lifters. Does having a big squat or press really translate to a big improvement in the o-lifts. Obviously there is some correlation, but other posts on this forum have lead me to believe that the press was not very important at all for o-lifting, and that one could improve one’s squat a great deal without improving the competition lifts. These two claims would lead me to believe that the “weakness” of our lifters is not that important. also, can many o-lifters squat more than Shane Hammon?
I don’t think its that the american oly lifters are not that strong I think its just that the coaching standard is not as high in the US and oly lifting is a highly technical discipline that ideally should be started when the athlete is young. Being strong is not enough. Otherwise PL’s could switch sports at will and kick ass in Weightlifting. But that doesn’t happen.
I might as well throw my opinion out here too. I don’t mean to come off as a typical whiner as you can see clearly on the go heavy board, but doping is probably the biggest factor in the difference between our guy’s lifts and our European counterparts. Having talked about this topic with a couple different European lifters and several friends who have spoken with even more, the general consensus is the difference is the doping. One Bulgar even told me the IOC will let maybe one athlete from a particular country have a free ride from the drug-testing program so as to do well and help promote the sport. This is a similar situation we just read about in the interview with the NFL player when the league isn’t interested in suspending the people they are paying bug bucks to to perform at their best, it just isn’t good for business. The US lifters are really scrutinized heavily when it comes to NAN (no advanced notification) testing, where as the European scene is cleverly different. The Euro lifters train in different countries all the time, almost on a type of tour. The propaganda they tell everyone (and some US lifters naively believe) is this is for the purpose of getting the athletes used to being in different surroundings. Yeah, OK. Obviously this is a way of staying as far ahead of and away from the NAN testers. The Soviet lifters and every other team never did this before the NAN clampdown, this should be obvious. I personally think its dumb to lift without the beans anyway. I like to get the maximum amount of return on my investment of time, energy and sacrifice and the shit is the best way to go without a coach or popular club to lift with. There is nothing shameful at all about it, but the US has decided to try to do this sport clean and get their asses kicked while crying foul about everyone who beats them. Are our best athletes sucked up by football and other high-paying sports? (except wrestling and a few others) Yes. Could we still be competitive on the international scene even with the small pool of athletes we have? Sure, but we would have to allow our guys some doping (and the amount needed is so small it would shock most people).
Just wanted to point out that the American women did pretty darn well in the 2000 Sydney Olympics:
In the 75Kg class, Cara Heads-Lane came in 7th and Cheryl Haworth took a bronze medal.
In the 48 Kg class, Robin Goad came in 5th and Tara Nott won the gold medal.
I think I may have contradicted myself here. On another thread I said it was small-minded to only say it is the drugs to credit for the Euros success, as this is commonly stated on the beloved goheavy board, and here I go and make the same claim. It could very well be that our guys are indeed clean, I know from a reliable source that the coaches at the OTC cannot and do not give advice or info on doping in any capacity, while the Euro guys openly joke around about their cycles and such. Doping is a major factor for sure, but I personally don’t think it is the only reason. It is a very different mindset over there when your being paid to lift and train in a high-intensity environment. Also the Euro coaches who learn of how the US system of teaching technique and writing programs is done are not impressed to say the least, but this could be just ego, I understand our programs are Russian derived with a few twists here and there. So to try to wipe the egg off my face and trying to weigh all the factors I’m familiar with I would say that the training is the biggest factor, even if the Euros say differently (and they do), then the doping. I hope this clears up a bit where I’m coming from.
the issue is not so simple as americans not being strong enough, as others have said. strength is not the only determining factor in weightlifting. in both america and europe some athletes have been very, very strong and not been at the top of the heap… in russia at the 1979 spartikade aslnbek yenaldiev had olympic style squatted 455kilos coming in, yet could not rise from a 240kilo clean, while on the other hand pisarenko only squatted around 270 kilos and he eventually clean and jerked over 260kilos. tim mccray (usa)got strong as a horse as he moved up the weight classes (maybe the strongest pound for pound USA lifter ever), yet his best lifting was as a lighter lifter where his squat didnt overshadow his clean and snatch by so much. examples are numerous that the strongest squat, or good morning, or deadlift doesnt determine the best lifter.
as far as the europeans being “more musclular” or “thicker” than the americans, id say no to that also… have you looked at kolecke or boevski lately? as in america, the best europeans are a variety of different body types, some slender, some stocky.
as far as the coaching question, our top lifters have been coached by dragomir circlovsen for quite a few years now. if there was any large difference between european and american coaching, id think that the difference would have been erased when he began coaching our best guys, at least lessened in a few years. that hasnt really happened.
the real factor is athletes, we dont have that many of them, and we dont have the ones in OL that we need to compete with the rest of the world, becasue OL is not a popular sport in the US as it is elsewhere, and becasue our economic conditions dont favor the kind of work ethic from an early age that is evidently required to reach the level of the europeans. no one could have taken bo jackson away from the multi-million dollars in team sports and trained him brutally hard in OL from the age of 12 or 13 in order to win a gold medal… but thats what it will take for us to win a gold medal. finding that special kid or kids, who could probably succeed in many other sports, and get them to commit to OL early and train many long hard years. to do that, the sport will have to get bigger and more popular in the US.
A lot of talk about strength and technique, but what about gpp, spp, agility, tumbling and overall cross training. Do the Americans participate in other sports and/or activities to develop the overall complete athlete?
Top OLifters can go and compete in the long jump, high jump, discus etc… Many athletes are out of shape and only train within thier sports realm. Not knowing the training program of the US, this may be a problem. The Eastern Europeans cross train and it helps develop the complete athlete which can only increase an OLifters capabilities.
