South American Athletes Test in Olympic Conditions

(ATR) Organizers for the weightlifting test event tell Around the Rings the South American weightlifting championship provides more than enough conditions to properly test the sport for the Olympics.

Weightlifting held a test event at Carioca Arena 1 in the Olympic Park from April 7 to 10. The sport will be held in the RioCentro convention center during the Games. Competitors came from all over South America for their continental championship, while athletes from Germany, Thailand, and the United States joined in to test the venue.

International Weightlifting Federation Director General Attila Adamfi told ATR the decision to test at Carioca Arena 1 allowed organizers to save money by not building spectator stands or other temporary offices. Rio 2016 held a similar test event for the Paralympic discipline powerlifting at Carioca Arena 1, and integrated the knowledge from the event into planning.

"The beauty in weightlifting infrastructure is it is very simple," Adamfi said. "It is financially reasonable to test here the field of play, the operation, the timing and scoring, the staff, and the volunteers. It doesn’t matter for us on which concrete floor we put the protection and the platform and see how it works."

Due to the special floor installed in the arena for basketball during the Games, extra precautions needed to be taken when installing the weightlifting infrastructure. Organizers were happy with the main competition platform, but athletes said that some of the platforms needed adjustments.

"The training and competition platforms are slipping a bit, but otherwise everything is going very well," Francisco Mosquera, a competitor from Colombia, told local media at the event. "The bars and weights are very good."

Rio 2016 Sports Director Rodrigo Garcia said that athlete feedback would be taken into account as organizers translate the event from Carioca Arena 1 to RioCentro convention center. He added that overall the event had run smoothly and contributed to the legacy of bringing the first Olympics to South America.

"We don’t have many international athletes from around the world, but this reinforces our main objective of giving South American athletes the chance to be in an Olympic venue," Garcia said to ATR.

"Of course it is not the same venue, but we are replicating the competition environment and using the manpower and the equipment we are going to use Games time."

Written by Aaron Bauer in Rio de Janeiro

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