You Have to See These Throwback Women's Weightlifting Videos (1988-2001)

Karnam Mallesawi | Photo by The Olympic Channel.

We’re all stuck at home right now and for those of us with newfound hours to kill, there are so many things to be watching and consuming online. Many weightlifting gyms have TVs that run a stream of recent World Championships going during training to encourage their athletes. While it is important to watch the best athletes of the present and see how they move, sometimes it’s nice to take a trip down the rabbit hole and see what women in weightlifting looked like when it all started.

1988 World Championships

The 1988 Weightlifting World Championships took place in Jakarta, Indonesia where 103 women competed. This video is an absolute diamond in the rough, and seems to be the earliest footage on YouTube of women’s competitive weightlifting. China swept gold across nearly every weight class. This video has a handful of cringey butt shots which we don’t appreciate, but we do love to see hot pink acrylic nails on weightlifting women in the 80s. We live for that.

1994 World Championships

Jumping ahead to 1994, we’ve got this iconic highlight reel of women across multiple weight classes taking their attempts at the World Championships. This meet was in Istanbul, Turkey and we see many of the women compete in men’s clothing.

1998 European Championships

The drama in this announcer’s voice! Catch 7 minutes of pure 90s thrill in the 1998 European Championships Women’s 63kg Class in Riesa, Germany.

1999 World Championships

This playlist is quality coverage of all of the women’s weight classes in the 1999 World Championships in Athens, Greece. There’s no commentary on these videos but there are tons of 90s transitions that will be sure to reel in all the nostalgia. This was the last Worlds before women were allowed to compete in the Olympics.

2000 Sydney Olympics

Unfortunately the IOC has taken down a lot of early weightlifting footage that was once up covering the Sydney 2000 Olympics. If you weren’t aware, 2000 was the first year that women were allowed to compete in Weightlifting in the Olympics. Since we can’t get footage of the full competition, we’ll have to appreciate this video highlighting India’s first gold medal winner, Karnam Malleswari on her final Clean and Jerk.

2001 World Championships

This playlist has all of the 2001 World Championships in Antalya, Turkey. This was the first Worlds after the Olympics, so we really see a jump in impressive competitors at this meet.

BONUS: 2003 World’s Strongest Woman Competition

While these ladies are not weightlifters, they had to make it onto this list in some capacity because of the truly iconic bulky lifestyle these strongwomen were emulating in 2003. It is worth noting the questionable cultural things happening in this video as they somewhat tokenize the community in Zambia where they are competing in a capacity that is certainly no longer deemed acceptable.