IWF120y/15 – 1950: Time limit before the lift, a necessity

In October 1950, on the occasion of the World Championships, the International Federation’s Congress was convened in Paris (FRA). Welcoming the delegates at home, President Jules Rosset expressed in his report a major concern within the weightlifting family: the time lifters were taking before actually performing their attempt. As there were no restrictions back then, Rosset said: “It sometimes lasts five and even 10 minutes, as certain athletes stage veritable comedies before seizing the weights. With such a procedure, we shall gradually lose the attendance of many people at our competitions. I think it would be good to set a time limit and then disqualify the performance of any athlete who has gone beyond it”. Despite the presidential recommendation (and a British proposal to set this limit at three minutes), delegates at the Congress could not reach a consensus, but a compromise was set: at the World Championships in the French capital, there would be a record on the average time for the lifts and a then a formal rule should be applied for the 1951 edition onwards. The three-minute tolerance was effectively approved in the early years of the 1950s and updated more than two decades later (in 1976) to two minutes. At present, at the current IWF events and the Olympic Games, there are the following time limits (whose countdowns are displayed in the attempt board – illustrative photo): two minutes if the same athlete performs consecutive lifts and one minute if a different athlete is called on the platform.