To no one’s surprise, 2023 ended up being a phenomenal year for weightlifting athletes and fans of the sport alike. All eyes turn towards the ever-closer Olympic Games next summer, but the battles held upon the competition platform this year will strongly influence who makes it to Paris.
These 10 athletes stood out from the pack this year. Some set brand-new world records, while others made their triumphant return to the barbell. And some just had one good day on the platform after another.
Best Weightlifters of 2023
- Rahmat Erwin Abdullah
- Liu Huanhua
- Hampton Morris
- Olivia Reeves
- Team North Korea
- Luo Shifang
- Mary Theisen-Lappen
- Sergio Massidda
- Ritvars Suharevs
- Liang Xiaomei
1. Rahmat Erwin Abdullah (73KG)
Fans of weightlifting first recognized Indonesia’s Rahmat Erwin Abdullah during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. There, Abdullah debuted a competitive oddity he’s since become known for — winning medals and taking the podium from outside of the “A Group” (he won bronze in Tokyo from the Men’s 73-kilogram Group B).
Abdullah continued that habit throughout 2023, earning a reputation within weightlifting as one of the stealthiest and most lethal competitors in the men’s middleweight divisions. Abdullah also isn’t afraid to bounce around weight categories and compete against full-fledged 81-kilogrammers while weighing only 75 or 76 kilograms himself:
- 2023 IWF Grand Prix I: 1st | 81 kilograms
- 2023 IWF World Weightlifting Championships: 2nd | 81 kilograms
- 19th Asian Games: 1st | 73 kilograms
- 2023 IWF Grand Prix II: 2nd | 81 kilograms
While his 2023 resume may paint him as an 81, rest assured that Abdullah will compete in Paris at 73 kilos. And, since Abdullah currently owns the clean & jerk world record in both the 73s and 81s (at 201 and 209 kilograms, respectively), he’s an early favorite for gold at next year’s Games.
2. Liu Huanhua (102KG)
Team China is renowned for its dominance in nearly every aspect of modern weightlifting (for example, Chinese women currently hold 11 senior world records and, at one point in 2022, had claimed all of them across every weight category save for one or two holdouts).
But the country has long struggled to produce that sort of guaranteed-gold-medal athlete in the men’s heavyweights — until Liu Huanhua came along. Lovingly nicknamed “the Gigachad” by fans, Huanhua is China’s latest prodigy in the 102-kilogram Olympic category. In 2023 alone, he ranked:
- 2023 Asian Weightlifting Championships: 1st | 96 kilograms
- 2023 World Weightlifting Championships: 1st | 102 kilograms
- 19th Asian Games: 1st | 109 kilograms
- 2023 IWF Grand Prix II: 2nd | 102 kilograms
[Read More: The Heaviest Clean & Jerks Ever Filmed]
As he’s moved up in weight, his performance has jumped accordingly. Huanhua’s best result of the year was at the 19th Asian Games, where he set unofficial world records in the clean & jerk (233 kilograms) and Total (418 kilograms). Huanhua, though, must continue to advance his position if he wants to convince his country that he’s worthy to take one of only three male athlete slots for Paris.
3. Hampton Morris (61KG)
Hampton Morris hasn’t had a bad year yet. Since he really kicked off his international career for the States in 2021, the 19-year-old has made it to the podium at every competition he’s attended, barring two.
Throughout his frequent competitive appearances, Morris has racked up more Youth and Junior titles (and world records) than he knows what to do with. This year, his highest accomplishment yet went hand-in-hand with one of his lowest.
- 2023 Grand Prix I: 2nd
- 2023 Pan-American Championships: 1st
- 2023 World Weightlifting Championships: did not finish
- 2023 Junior World Championships: 2nd
- 2023 Grand Prix II: 5th
[Related: Weightlifter Hampton Morris (61KG) Unveils Unofficial 176-Kilogram World Record Clean & Jerk]
At the 2023 World Weightlifting Championships, Morris bombed out during the snatch portion of the Men’s 61-kilogram Group A, failing to register a successful lift. But during the clean & jerks, Morris returned in force to win the gold medal with a 168-kilogram lift.
Not only did Morris edge out the current Olympic Champion, Li Fabin of China, but he also broke a longstanding record: No American male had won a gold medal at the World Championships in the last 51 years.
4. Olivia Reeves (71KG)
There’s been a battle raging in the women’s 71-kilogram category for the past few years. Tokyo 2020 silver medalist Kate Vibert-Davis, 2021 World Champion Meredith Alwine, and 2021 Junior World Champion Olivia Reeves have been going head-to-head for the top spot in the U.S.A.
But as 2023 comes to a close, it’s becoming clear that Reeves is a cut above her competition. The 20-year-old sensation showed that she could hang with the best in the world when she placed 2nd at the 2023 IWF Grand Prix II with an absolutely monstrous 262-kilogram Total and multiple Junior world records. Here’s a portrait of her progression in the last year alone:
- 2022 World Weightlifting Championships: 245-kilogram Total
- 2023 Pan-American Championships: 247-kilogram Total
- 2023 Grand Prix I: 241-kilogram Total
- 2023 World Weightlifting Championships: 253-kilogram Total
- 2023 Grand Prix II: 262-kilogram Total
Reeves’ performance at the Grand Prix II also netted her all three Junior world records in the 71-kilogram division. At Tokyo in 2021, the winning Total in the 76-kilogram category (which won’t be held in Paris next year) was 263 kilograms by Ecuador’s Neisi Dajomes. If her trajectory continues, Reeves is heading for the Olympic platform.
5. Team North Korea
It may come as a shock to learn that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is more successful in Olympic lifting than any other Games-recognized sport, and by no small margin. They’ve won 55 Summer Games medals overall, 18 of which come from weightlifting, while their second-winningest event, wrestling, has yielded 10.
After a four-year hiatus from the sport, the DPRK returned to the international weightlifting platform in 2023 when they sent a team to the 19th Asian Games. Their weightlifters won more medals than any other country, and their women’s team took five world records to boot:
- Women’s 49KG Clean & Jerk: 124 kilograms | Ri Song-Gum
- Women’s 49KG Total: 216 kilograms | Ri Song-Gum
- Women’s 55KG Snatch: 103 kilograms | Kang Hyong-Yong
- Women’s 55KG Clean & Jerk: 130 kilograms | Kang Hyong-Yong
- Women’s 55KG Total: 233 kilograms | Kang Hyong-Yong
This trend continued in December when DPRK athletes won 13 medals in the Total at the IWF’s Grand Prix II. However, North Korea’s retreat from international sport in 2019 and subsequent reemergence (stronger than ever) has drawn the ire of both IWF officials and other countries who feel that DPRK weightlifters haven’t been subjected to a fair amount of PED-related oversight in the past four years.
[Related: Did Weightlifter Won Jeong-Sik Clean & Jerk 200kg (2kg Over World Record)?]
According to an insidethegames article from Oct. 8, IWF President Mohammed Jalood noted that North Korea “must look beyond [the Paris 2024 Olympics]. They are not eligible,” citing that the country had failed to appear at requisite events earlier in the qualification cycle.
Regardless, the Democratic People’s Republic seems undeterred at missing out on next year’s Games. In the same article, a spokesperson for the weightlifting team remarked, “We are world leaders now. We wanted to show our strength and we did it.”
6. Luo Shifang (59KG)
China’s women weightlifters are the best in the world, full stop. But their successes aren’t tethered to the outlying achievements of one or two specific athletes; all of the Chinese women are good, and every few years, the country debuts a new star.
In 2023, 59-kilogram Luo Shifang made a big splash on the international weightlifting platform. Despite having a couple of IWF events under her belt as a Youth athlete in 2017, Shifang really began her Senior career in earnest this year:
- 2023 Asian Championships: 1st
- 2023 World Weightlifting Championships: 1st
- 19th Asian Games: 2nd
- 2023 Grand Prix II: 1st
Shifang has made equally strong strides with her strength over the course of the year. At her first competition of 2023 in May, she Totaled 238 kilograms. In December, she put 247 on the board.
That Total matches the current world record held by Taiwan’s five-time World Champion Kuo Hsing-Chun, but looks more fragile by the day as long as Shifang sticks around.
7. Mary Theisen-Lappen (+87KG)
For over a decade, American super-heavyweight weightlifting has been mostly buoyed by the consistency of +87-kilogram Sarah Robles, a three-time Olympian and 2017 World Champion. But in 2023, Mary Theisen-Lappen took her first real shot at that crown.
Despite a comparatively scant resume — she first lifted on an IWF stage in 2020 — Theisen-Lappen has rapidly positioned herself as one of the States’ strongest assets by making it to the podium at every single event she’s attended:
- 2020 Rogue Weightlifting Challenge: 2nd
- 2021 Pan-American Championships: 1st
- 2023 Pan-American Championships: 1st
- 2023 Grand Prix I: 1st
- 2023 World Weightlifting Championships: 2nd
- 2023 Grand Prix II: 1st
[Related: American Weightlifter Mary Theisen-Lappen Wins Gold Medal at 2023 IWF Grand Prix II]
Three gold medals and one silver in a single year is just about the best result any weightlifter can hope for. What’s more, Theisen-Lappen and Robles have spent the past few years battling for a higher slot on the IWF top-10 leaderboard, the primary metric by which USA Weightlifting will determine who they select to send to Paris 2024 next year.
By winning the Grand Prix II in December, Theisen-Lappen has finally leapfrogged Robles. She currently sits in fourth place in the world.
8. Sergio Massidda (61KG)
When the IWF unveiled the qualification procedure for the 2024 Olympics, weightlifters were startled by the stark difference between the pathway to Paris and the recently concluded Tokyo Games. In essence, all you need to qualify is one really heavy, really gutsy performance.
Team Italy has embraced that go-big-or-go-home mentality to varying degrees of success. Sixty-one-kilogram Sergio Massidda has adopted it quite well, though, and quickly became a real threat in the lightweight division. In 2023, Massidda:
- Raised his competition Total by 9 kilograms (302 to 293)
- Medaled internationally in multiple weight categories (61 and 67 kilograms)
- Improved his best result at Senior Worlds (2nd, up from 4th in 2022)
- Moved into 4th in the world on the IWF leaderboard (and is the only non-Asian weightlifter in the top five as of Dec.)
[Read More: The Best Conditioning Workouts for Weightlifters to Help You Get Strong, Lean, and Limber]
Some weightlifters hang their hats on one singular performance or a specific achievement over the course of a competitive year. But it’s just as commendable to fly under the radar and quietly make a case for yourself as one of the best in the world — and that’s exactly what Massidda is doing.
9. Ritvars Suharevs (73KG)
Latvian weightlifter Ritvars Suharevs is 24 as of this article’s publication. He’s only a handful of years removed from being a Junior athlete, but Suharevs has been competing internationally multiple times a year since 2012.
There are no medals in weightlifting for longevity, but Suharevs’ storied career is commendable in more ways than one. After placing 6th at his first Olympics in 2021, Suharevs underwent surgery on both of his shoulders and was sidelined from competition for nearly a year. But he had, arguably, his best single-year performance — and the meet of his life — in 2023:
- 2023 European Weightlifting Championships: 1st
- 2023 World Weightlifting Championships: did not finish
- 2023 Grand Prix II: 1st
[Related: 2023 European Weightlifting Championships Full Results]
In 2023, at his seventh appearance, Suharevs finally won the Senior European Championships at 73 kilograms. He bombed out in the clean & jerks at this year’s Worlds but returned with a fire in his belly to compete at the Grand Prix II.
There in Doha, Suharevs won another gold medal, set a career-best Total in his current weight class, and (perhaps most impressively) handed a defeat to China’s two-time Olympic Champion Shi Zhiyong — his first-ever loss at a weightlifting competition in 11 years.
10. Liang Xiaomei (81KG)
When Team China debuted Liang Xiaomei at her first Senior international event — the 2022 World Championships, where she won 81-kilogram gold — no one was surprised. The country is known for its reservoir of on-tap talent.
But one good meet could be luck. As 2023 draws to a close, it has become quite clear that Xiaomei didn’t get lucky at last year’s Worlds. That event was just the first basket of her hot streak:
- 2022 World Weightlifting Championships: 1st
- 2023 Asian Weightlifting Championships: 1st
- 2023 World Weightlifting Championships: 1st
- 19th Asian Games: 1st
- 2023 Grand Prix II: 1st
[Related: Weightlifter Liang Xiaomei (81KG) Sets 161KG (354.9-Pound) Clean & Jerk World Record]
In addition to winning all four IWF events she attended this year, Xiaomei is also a pioneer in the 81-kilogram division. She set the first world records in the clean & jerk (161 kilograms) and Total (284 kilograms) at the Grand Prix II — no athlete in the world had been able to exceed the Standard benchmarks set by the IWF in 2018.
128 kilograms in the snatch is the weight Xiaomei will need to hold all three world records in her category. At her most recent competition, she snatched 123. If her trajectory is anything to go by, she’ll probably have all three records locked up by the time the Olympics rolls around.
More Weightlifting Content
- How an Unexpected Phone Call Could Get 36-Year-Old Weightlifter Caine Wilkes Back to the Olympics
- Thousands of Gym Rats Crashed a Website Trying to Buy This 20-Pound Coffee Mug
- What Olympic Quota Cuts Really Mean for Weightlifters and Fans
Credit: William Johnson / @barbellstories
The post The 10 Best Weightlifters of 2023 appeared first on BarBend.