Topic: 1st Youth World Championships

[ryankyle]

The IWF announced that is has allocated the 1st Youth World Championships (ages 13 - 17) to Changmai, Thailand.  The venue will be the same that was used for the 2007 World Championships.  I am assuming the weightclasses will be 50kg - 94+kg for boys and 44kg - 69+kg for girls as per the current IWF rules.  Hopefully Youth World Records will follow.

This is perhaps the best thing the IWF could have done for weightlifting at this point in time.  Currently the world and olympic champions are getting younger and younger.  The average age of Olympic Champions this year was 21 years and 7 months, the youngest by far in the biathalon era beating the next closest by 3 years!  Currently if I had my pick of any contest to attend anywhere in the world in a year it would be the Youth European or Youth Asians.  Last year at the Europeans a 50kg 16 year-old snatched 92kg and another clean and jerked 114kg!  Now I would give my right arm to be in Chang Mai come May.

I highly doubt the U.S. sends a team to this contest as currently they can not even afford to pay for the Junior World team but are hiring a high performance director - $50,000 a year could go a long way in paying for international trips for our Youth and Junior competitors, i.e. the future of weightlifting.    Further, for some reason unbeknown to me, the U.S. fails to one, contest the IWF approved weight categories, and two, update their schoolage/youth records to fit the correct weightclasses.  I do not understand why it is so hard to simply change two or three classes and type the records.  At last years school age nationals there was not a 50kg class contest for boys 16-17 and there was no 94+kg only 105 and 105+.  Also, the IWF age says 13-17 we do 13 and under 14-15 and 16-17.  Dividing up the age categories is fine with me but at least in the 14-15 and 16-17 contest the right weight classes.

Ryan

[Michael Øvrebø]

Sounds very interesting! Hopefully they'll show some of it on TV!

[Adrian Cadmus-Dixon]

I would be interested to be going for Canada, but I have to get MTP for my category at the end of March.

[Walter Bailey]

This is probably the worst thing the IWF has done, along with the Junior Olympics, Commonwealth Youth Games etc.  If these young athletes are able to compete at the Senior World Level, then all the best to them.  What we do not need, is all of these Youth competitions.

First of all, Juniors already have a wealth of competitions to compete in, and here in Canada where a young lifter at that level may compete in a local competition, their Provincial Youth, Junior and Senior Championships as well as National Senior and Junior Championships, plus any international competitions...it's too much.  The Junior worlds is enough!

Secondly, I think it invalidates slightly the actual Games.  To go to the Olympic, Pan-Am, Commonwealth games, an athletes has to invest years of training.  The reward is not just the competition, but the experience of living one of the "Games."  Now, some kid who has trained for a couple years can live this experience too?  Some of these kids have very few, if any, international experience, and they are going to the "OLYMPICS?!"  Remember, our sport is not like gymnastics, or even swimming, where kids start at three years of ages.  We are a late onset sport, we start older, peak older, and retire older.  A 14 year old weightlifter is not at the same point in his career as a 14 year old gymnast. 

The biggest issue (in my opinion) will be doping.  Look at the nations who systymatically dope.  The ones who are the best in the world, and feel like nothing else is acceptable.  Do you think they will settle for fair play just because it is a youth competition?  Especially if these youth competitions (especially the "Olympics) become high profile?  Of course not!  They will have to win at all costs, just like they do at the Senior level.  Can you imagine the scandal and the damage that will be done to our sport if some 13 or 14 year old kid tests positive?!  Not to mention the actual physical harm that will come to this young athlete in the future from abusing his body?

Big Youth competitions might work for some sports, but not ours!

Anyways, my 2 cent.

[ryankyle]

Sorry but I disagree.  For a long time now weightlifting has been a sport that is about the youth.  Bulgaria started it in the early 80's and continues to grow.  The average age of the Olympic Champions this year was 21, the lowest ever by 3 years!  What I venture we will not see at this contest is a country (for the most part) sending lifters who would be on the Junior World team also because of the closeness of the two contest, about 1 month apart.  What we will have a chance to see is the future of weightlifting talent in it's very beginning.  I would have loved to seen Naim do his 95 + 120 at 48kg and 14 year's old.  Before the two lift era weightlifting was a sport for older athlete's (relatively speaking) but since the biathalon era started the age has shifted.  It should be a very interesting contest.
Ryan

[Shaun Le Conte]

I agree with Walter. However, I don't think our national federation in particular has the resources to send a team to the world youth championships and wouldn't even if it did. If a lifter wants to pay his/her way, fine.

I would rather see money spent on in-country activities or within North America.

Another thing is that the teens winning the youth championships are IMO often the fast developers who hit puberty early. How often does a world junior champion do great things as a senior lifter? Sometimes. The relationship between youth and senior success will be much weaker at the youth level. I say this without having studied the results of the European Youth Championships which are available online back many years.