![]() In China, athletes are often selected to attend sport schools as young as 8 years old. In contrast, USA Weightlifting (USAW), weightlifting’s governing body in the US, provides stipends which rarely exceed $10,000 only a select few athletes receive. In the United States, the best athletes go to where the money is – the NFL, NBA, and other sports where contracts regularly run in the tens of millions of dollars. Chinese weightlifters are given yearly stipends and are provided room and board for free provided they continue to train and compete for the national team. The Chinese government has poured funding into developing systems for each of these sports – systems that include every possible aspect needed to produce successful athletes, from scouting to world class coaching to designer drugs (yes, drugs. Today, China completely overshadows the rest of the world in certain sports: diving, table tennis, badminton, certain shooting events, and weightlifting. However, as the Cold War died down and the Cultural Revolution ended, China saw a new opportunity for itself on the international stage – sports. Whoever could produce the better athletes would be seen as the superior country. Throughout the 20th century, Olympic weightlifting, along with many other things, was seen as a way for the two countries to indirectly fight the Cold War. Way back in the early days of Olympic weightlifting, the US and Soviet Union where seen as the dominant powers. In fact, China holds more world records than the 3 next closest countries combined. The next closest country is Russia, a country whose weightlifting heritage goes back to the beginning of the Cold War, with 24 world records. Perhaps another metric that might be useful in conveying China’s dominance is world records out of a possible 135 records (snatch, clean and jerk, and total records for 15 different weight classes over 3 different age divisions), China holds an astounding 48. The top five +75kg lifters were also all Chinese, as well as the top three 63kg lifters and the top four 48kg lifters. Take the women’s 53kg weight class, for instance the top 8 lifters in 2015 were all Chinese. In some ways, China’s dominance in women’s weightlifting is even more staggering. For 69kg men, 6 out of the top 10 were Chinese, and you need to go down to 6th place before you encounter a non-Chinese lifter. For 62kg men, 5 out of the top 10 lifters in the world were Chinese. Take 2015, for example: for 56kg men, 9 out of the 10 best lifters in the world were Chinese. He was nevertheless chosen to represent China at the 2013 World Championships, where he was forced to drop out after the snatch part of the competition.This is a question that was raised in the comment section of my last post, and a question that is continuously asked within the weightlifting community.īefore we examine why China consistently produces the best weightlifters I think it’s important to understand the level of dominance that Chinese weightlifters have, particularly in the lighter weight classes. Later this year in September at the domestically prestigious Chinese National Games he placed third with only two good attempts. In the March National Championships he won the snatch with 165 kg but had to retire early again due to injury after only one successful jerk, not placing on the overall podium. In 2013 he moved up to the 85 kg class and competed in January at the Australian Youth Olympic Festival, winning the bronze medal. During his second attempt in the jerk with 211 kg he also injured his right elbow and had to rehab for the rest of the year. ![]() With his total of 365 kg he was however beaten by Lu Haojie and Lu Xiaojun to third place and didn’t make the national team. Tian’s next competition was the April 2012 National Championships where he attempted to qualify for the London Olympic Games. According to our analysis, Wikipedia, Forbes & Business Insider, Tian Tao's net worth $5 Million. Tian Tao is one of the richest Weightlifter & listed on most popular Weightlifter.
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