Weight greatly depends on age and height. One, of course, becomes heavier with age. Several famous sportsmen, such as the Olympic champions, Naim Suleymanoglu, Anatoli Khrapaty, Nicu Vlad, and Leonid Taranenko considerably increased their body weight during the sports career (1980-2000).
This study investigated the relationship between these basic measures; weight, age, and height, and the nationalities of weightlifters from different countries.
Almost half of the Asian sportsmen are concentrated in a height range from 160 up to 170 cm. For the Europeans two peaks are characteristic: from 160 up to 165 cm (the representatives of the south mostly) and from 175 up to 180 cm (boreal countries).
Table 1 - Height frequency of 1996 Olympians
| Height |
≤150 |
≤155 |
≤160 |
≤165 |
≤170 |
≤175 |
≤180 |
≤185 |
≤190 |
| In Total |
6 |
5 |
35 |
39 |
40 |
32 |
42 |
22 |
6 |
| From Europe |
2 |
0 |
13 |
22 |
12 |
16 |
21 |
13 |
3 |
| From Asia |
3 |
3 |
8 |
14 |
20 |
8 |
14 |
4 |
3 |
The correlation coefficient between weightlifters’ height and weight is r=0.86. It is interesting, that the most successful teams in the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games were those teams in whose weight categories were closest to the average weight in a team.
Table 2 - The average weight of the weightlifters of the best teams of the participants of OG 1996-2000
| Country |
Greece |
China |
Bulgaria |
Turkey |
Poland |
Russia |
Germany |
Ukraine |
Armenia |
| OG 1996 |
84.7 |
67.8 |
68.5 |
76.1 |
80.0 |
100.2 |
101.3 |
94.0 |
91.3 |
| OG 2000 |
77.6 |
64.4 |
71.3 |
76.5 |
101.0 |
104.0 |
100.2 |
95.3 |
97.0 |
There is also an interrelation between proportions of a body and the nationality of the athletes. Northerners are more massive. Thinness, long-armed and long-legged is characteristic for the representatives of the south.
The team of Greece appeared the most harmonious, because their average of these measures coincided closely with the average data of all athletes, who took part in Olympic Games. Probably, such harmony allowed the Greek team to act equally in all weight categories and to win the first place in two Olympiads in succession. The difference in height between the sportsmen of boreal and austral countries (5-10 %) is much less, than the difference between the own weight (>40 %).
Figure 1 – Average weight, height, and age of the top eight teams in the 1996 Olympic Games.
It was concluded that some geographical and ethnic features promote the success of weightlifters from different countries in certain weight categories.
