Weightlifting in the Americas Still Alive Despite COVID-19

(ATR) The eventful year faced by the weightlifting family closed with messages of hope in the Americas through the best possible way: watching the athletes compete.

The weightlifters of the Americas managed to keep their dreams alive through what 10 months ago was the unimaginable idea of online competitions.

After all of the national and international tournaments canceled or postponed due to the global coronavirus pandemic, December closes with the encouraging signs left by United States Weightlifting and the Pan American Weightlifting Federation in organizing online contests that, like everything celebrated for the first time, remain fixed in the sports memory.

At the beginning of the month, USA Weightlifting sponsored its national championships online instead of the face-to-face tournament that had been set for Atlanta. The result was a record of about a thousand competitors from almost every state. Later in the month, a week with 11 international tournaments held simultaneously was endorsed by the Pan American Federation as a first.

South American, Ibero-American and Pan-American Championships Sub 15 Sub 17 and Sub 20, and an invitational Cup of the South American Confederation, with organizational help of the Colombian Federation, led to interesting days in which youth weightlifters from North America also participated.

For those who followed the competitions through the new communication platforms, they experienced emotional moments when they saw the athletes getting on the platforms of modest gyms, or improvising in garages or in backyards, many from their small hometowns.

Online competitions also enabled poor countries in the Americas to compete for the first time with their largest delegations in their history in an international weightlifting tournament, and even win their first medals. Although virtual, they were celebrated in person. Bolivia was an example.

In the midst of the pandemic, the IWF Virtual World Championship, in this case Sub 17, which Lima should have held, also received good marks for the Peruvian organizers.

Outside of competitions, the inauguration of the 1st Pan American Hall of Fame was also a motivating initiative in the face of the unrest that the cruel disease of COVID-19 left in the sports community. The PAWF was internationally recognized for its alternative online program not only for competitions but also in the technical, scientific and sports medicine fields.

For the new year, and with the hope of vaccines, a challenge for the current and future generations of weightlifters in the Americas will be to turn their online performances into successes in the next face-to-face tournaments such as the Olympic qualifiers, the World Junior Championships in May, or the I Junior Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia.

Homepage photo: USA Weightlifting

Written by Miguel Hernandez

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