The Arnold Weightlifting Championships: The Greatest Show in Weightlifting! - by Dan Bell
Weightlifting came to the Arnold Fitness Weekend in 2003 as a new event, given a chance by Arnold Schwarzenegger and his partner, Jim Lorimer, to bring the spotlight back to an Olympic sport in decline in the U.S. Having begun his career as a weightlifter on the Austrian national team, Arnold still has a soft spot in his heart for his first iron-game love. Jim Lorimer, along with lifting and coaching legend Fraysher Ferguson, organized and ran the 1970 World Weightlifting Championship here in Columbus, when Vasily Alexiev broke the 500 pound Clean & Jerk barrier. Arnold and Jim wanted to see U.S. weightlifting prosper again and wanted to create something special for the sport.
That assignment went to Megan Tornstrom DeFourny and Mark Cannella of the Columbus Weightlifting Club. This new and exciting weightlifting event grew with the Weekend, and evolved into the Arnold Sports Festival, with multiple Olympic sports, thousands of athletes and hundreds of thousands of fans. In its seventh year, the Arnold Weightlifting Championships remains the Greatest Show in Weightlifting, helping to fulfill Arnold's dream.
The first Arnold Weightlifting Championships in 2003 began with huge fanfare as Mark and Megan managed to secure the entire U.S. team from the Olympic Training Center, including Olympic Bronze medalist Cheryl Hayworth and the strongest Olympic lifter in U.S. history, Shane Hammon. Presented in a non-traditional competitive format, the meet intrigued the crowd, exhilarated the athletes and drew more spectators than most national weightlifting meets.
Wanting to increase the visibility of both the warm-up room and main platform, weightlifting was moved the next year to its new home on the main concourse at the intersection of two main hallways. The new venue afforded the meet an opportunity to innovate. Megan and Mark opened up the warm-up room to the hallway, a first in weightlifting, giving thousands of passing fans a look into the hidden part of the sport. Soon crowds of people were stopping to watch national and world class weightlifters prepare to walk onto the competition platform. The open warm-up room innovation has been a big hit and has drawn standing room crowds ever since.
Along with the innovative warm-up room and non-traditional meet formats, the Arnold Weightlifting Championships have become the most popular meet in the U.S. for athletes, coaches, officials and fans alike. Every year, the event offers something special. In 2004, the prize money had increased to over $ 10,000, drawing elite lifters from around the world to compete for the top money. Oleg Kechko, former Belorussian Olympian, just edged out Armen Ghazarian of Armenia for the first prize.
2004 also saw the beginning of a new tradition, the appearance of former Olympic and World Championship medalists from around the globe to be honored and share their enthusiasm and expertise with future champions of the sport. Leonid Zhabotinsky, Soviet heavyweight gold medal winner in the '64 and '68 Games, was the first of many weightlifting greats to appear at this event. Leonid is one of Arnold's weightlifting heroes. Arnold recounted having watched Zhabo carry the Soviet Flag with one hand in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games as a moment of inspiration as a young weightlifter. The Arnold Weightlifting Championships have honored the contributions of many former champions of the sport every year since, including Tommy Kono, Chuck Vinci, Ike Berger, Yuri Vardanyan, Joe Dube, members of the 1980 Olympic Team and many more. The 2009 Arnold event will feature former greats from both the US and former USSR.
By 2005, this event had caught the eye of the Chinese, who sent their head coach, Chen Wenbin, along with two Olympic and World Championship medalists for an EXPO main stage demonstration. Randy Strossen of IronMind Magazine teamed with Columbus Weightlifting to welcome the Chinese to this event.
At the contest, Oleg Kechko fought 2004 US Olympian Chad Vaughn in an epic back-and-forth battle with Oleg hitting a 195 kilogram (429 Pounds) clean & jerk to the screaming guitars of AC-DC for the win. The packed house erupted and could not have been more appreciative, when Chad came out and gave Oleg a congratulatory hug. It turned out that the titanic battle between the two was for second and third place after 2005 World Champion, Dimitri Klokov, snatched first place with six perfect lifts, totaling 400 kilos (880 Pounds) with expert coaching by former Soviet legend Yuri Vardanian. Quite the athletic lifter, Dimitri is smooth as a panther and strong as a bull. None of his lifts were ever in doubt.
The 2006 Arnold Weightlifting Championships saw more of Dimitri, coming off the World Championships and in a lighter weight class, wanting another taste of the Arnold. He met Donny Shankle in another epic battle, this time getting edged out by a kilo by the American. The crowd loved the animated Shankle and screamed themselves hoarse at his win. That Sunday, the 3rd place finisher in the Arnold Strongman, Misha Klokaev of Russia, stopped by the weightlifting venue and wanted to demo lift. As his first love was weightlifting, he wanted to give the Sunday crowd and youth Weightlifters a treat. Time was made and Misha wowed the crowd and the youngsters by hitting 240 kilos (528 Pounds) - the heaviest clean & jerk ever done in the US! Misha enjoyed bringing fans to their feet and stayed for an hour signing autographs for star-struck kids (and a few shy adults), encouraging the youth competitors to “always go for gold.”
The youth competitors would have more opportunities to meet their weightlifting idols in 2007 and 2008. The 2007 Arnold Weightlifting Championships hosted the World Team Challenge, featuring the top 40 US lifters vying for a spot on the 2007 World Championships Team, in addition to the Open competition offering five figure prize money and scholarships. Forty percent of these top lifters lifted more at the 2007 Arnold in March than in the 2007 Nationals two months later, so it was no surprise when the athletes voted for the 2008 Nationals, an Olympic-qualifying event, they voted to have them at the 2008 Arnold Weightlifting Championships.
Every Arnold Weightlifting Championship has had its memorable moments and star athletes, but in 2008 weightlifting became the first sport to have its national championship at the Arnold Sports Festival. Prize money was donated by Werksan Barbell and owner Joe DeLago allowing Columbus Weightlifting to pull out all the stops. The National championships went off without a hitch, receiving unprecedented press coverage. Over a dozen former US Olympians were in attendance, making 2008 Nationals the most star studded Nationals in recent history. Accolades were received from both competitors and attendees—many of whom had never had the Arnold experience—and they swore to return every year.
The Arnold Weightlifting Championship is much more than a meet. It is a reunion of old friends meeting to talk over good times past and present and new friends reveling in memories made; it is a chance to rub shoulders with other iron-gamers from powerlifting, strongman and bodybuilding; it is an opportunity for fans young and old to meet and socialize with their lifting heroes past and present; it is a chance for the Champions of Yesterday to encourage and mentor the Champions of Tomorrow. Most of all it is to be a part of Arnold's dream for the sport, The Arnold Weightlifting Championships, The Greatest Show in Weightlifting.
