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The Big Question in Powerlifting: The Olympics?
http://startingstrength.com/index.ph...f_powerlifting
Our friend from Scotland Michael Ferguson presents his side of the argument.
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Excellent perspective. I agree with the next to the last sentence but it seems many will disagree.
"The first and best thing you could do is not touch the PEDs, then join an IPF-affiliated federation, compete without the equipment, and finally, raise Powerlifting’s profile as a legitimate sport."
TMPHBITEU
My post from Facebook:
Also working against it is the fact that the IOC is not interested in any more "testosterone sports" in the Olympics. Watch the TV coverage, note what they're trying to do to wrestling, and see the pattern. Ballet will probably be in the Olympics long before powerlifting.
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The Olympic (organisation) these days is all about one thing, $$$. There simply isn't enough money in powerlifting for it to make the cut. Strongman would probably be a better option if they were interested in adding a strength sport since it work well on television (and only requires one medal). Unfortunately it doesn't have any federation with the legitimacy of the IPF, not to mention the elephant in the room of PED use.
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It wouldn't surprise me if PL never makes it into the olympics, at least not in the next 10-15 years. It is nice how it's currently growing; USAPL membership has doubled in the last 5 years from 3k to over 6k members. Equipment seems to be fading away as well. I'd say in the local meets I've been to over the past year > 80% of the competitors were raw. Not to mention USAPL raw nationals a couple months ago was the largest powerlifting meet in USA history, afaik, with 475 lifters and it'll be bigger next year.
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Beside all of the reasons given, they would never air an "Olympic" powerlifting meet on US networks if it made the cut. It would interrupt the wall to wall coverage of skinny people running (and swimming) around and the manditory 50% air time of human interest stories.
TMPHBITEU
Preeeeeeecisely. Neither the networks nor the IOC who feeds upon them are interested in hairy men doing "manly" things. Such things are just barely tolerated in polite society anyway, and there is certainly no room in popular culture for them. PajamaBoy is the embodiment of popular culture, and the media, and thus the IOC. Usain Bolt is only barely tolerated because he has no hair.
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There's money in archery? Handball? Synchronised fucking swimming?!Originally Posted by 51M0n
Let's face it: unless you're a lifter, powerlifting is boring to watch. Nobody wants to watch one guy and six of his buddies lift a weight, nor is anyone interested in looking at the top of your head or your crotch while you press a heavy weight off your chest. Plus as well as the plate changes there's changes of rack height etc - so it takes fucking ages.
That's why snatch, clean and jerk, and (previously) clean and press made it in there - it's just one person and the barbell. People can get into that.
Plus, if it did get into the Olympics, we'd have even more drug use than now. If people will pay a thousand bucks a month just so they can win the Backwoods Halfarsed Special Equipped Over-50s Push-Pull, what will they stick into themselves for Olympic gold?
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Jesus, I just googled pajama boy. I was fortunate enough for this to escape my attention up to this point. As if I didn't already find pop culture unbearable. It is kind of depressing.
Member
It's pretty boring to watch as a lifter too. At least the bench press part. With squat and deadlift you can at least see the lifter (less so if a monolift is used on squat). With bench, if you're at the back of the room, you can't see anything. Even if you can see anything it's still boring because 1) the bar moves about 12 inches tops, 2) only the arms move, not the whole body, and 3) a lifter's set up for bench typically takes longer than one setting up for squats or deadlift. Also at local meets the bench part takes twice as long because of all the bench only people, but that's a different problem.
While weightlifting doesn't have sight problems since it's just the lifter and barbell, I'd suspect more ordinary people could relate to powerlifting than weightlifting. Very few people seem to know what the snatch and c&j are, and even fewer people do the movements in the gym, but I'd bet most people have some idea of what a squat and deadlift are (everyone knows what bench is). And most gym goers will probably do some form of squatting and deadlifting, even if it's quarter or half squatting and cat-backed deadlifting.
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