Weightlifting

About Weightlifting

Weightlifting has been part of the Olympics since 1920 (and featured twice before that), with athletes competing in weight categories to lift the maximum possible combined total across two disciplines, the snatch and the clean and jerk.

Ireland has had three Olympic weightlifters to date: Sammy Dalzell and Tommy Hayden both competed at Rome 1960, in the featherweight and lightweight divisions respectively, and Frank Rothwell competed in the middle heavyweight at Munich 1972. Weightlifting has a small but growing domestic base in Ireland today.