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Home: Weightlifting World RecordsAs a sport, weightlifting is overseen by the IWF, International Weightlifting Federation. The records discussed in this article will be those sanctioned and validated by the IWF. The IWF was founded in 1905, however competitive weightlifting has a much longer history then that, the most ancient tests of strength were weightlifting competitions, and weightlifting, as we know it today was part of the original Greek Olympic games. Modern Olympic and professional weightlifting as sanctioned by the IWF really began to gain popularity especially in this country in the 1950's. Throughout the 1950's, '60s and into the 1970's and 80's Russian Lifters and other eastern Europeans seemed to dominate the sport. Many people are familiar with the name Vasly Alexeyev of The USSR, who in the 1970's set 80 world records and won two Olympic gold medals, and is generally recognized as the greatest powerlifter who ever lived. However patriotic Americans should also take note that a poll of IWF membership conducted in the 1980's named the USA's Tommy Kono as the greatest weightlifter in history. Kono set 26 world records, won two gold medals, one silver and remains the only competitive weightlifter to set and hold onto world records in four different weight classes The current official record for the Men's Clean and Jerk is an impressive 579.8 lbs, held by Iranian powerlifter, Hossein Rezaradeh. The heaviest clean and jerk of all time was done by Leonid Taraneko of the then Soviet Union who in 1988 lifted 586.4 pounds. Rezardeh also holds the current record for the Snatch at 469.6 pounds. The all time heaviest recorded snatch was 476.2 pounds lifted by Antonio Kraslev of Bulgaraia in 1987. On the women's side, 402.3 pounds was clean and jerked by Gonghong Tang of China at the 2004 Olympics in Sydney. There are many other feats of weightlifting prowess and amazing "unofficial" if you will, records in weightlifting that are quite interesting and fascinating. They certainly can keep you motivated, and who knows maybe you might want to go after one of these. According to Guinness, the record for the most bench presses in one hour is held by Eamonn Keane of Ireland who bench pressed a weight or 200lbs 1,280 times, and did 493 reps with a 100lb weight all in under 1 hour for a total of 305,300 pounds! And Phil Pfister was named the 2006 Worlds Strongest Man in that annual competition, when in the final round he deadlifted two cars weighing a total of 728 pounds 12 times, then he defeated his opponents and gained the title by being the only man it the competition to successfully overhead lift 4 irregularly shaped stones weighing 227, 242, 275, and 294 pounds respectively.
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