The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has officially confirmed the Olympic Weight Classes for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, marking one of the sport’s most significant structural overhauls in recent decades.
The decision, approved by the IOC Executive Board, follows years of uncertainty about weightlifting’s Olympic future due to governance and doping controversies. The Los Angeles Games will feature 12 medal events six for men and six for women a modest expansion from the 10 events at Paris 2024. While the increase represents a vote of renewed confidence from the IOC, it comes with an unchanged athlete quota of 120 lifters (60 men and 60 women), making the qualification pathway to LA28 the most competitive in modern Olympic history.
The LA28 Weight Categories
The new Olympic divisions reflect a major departure from the Paris 2024 program, with every category revised to fit within the IWF’s reconstructed global framework.
Men’s Olympic Categories: 65kg, 75kg, 85kg, 95kg, 110kg, +110kg
Women’s Olympic Categories: 53kg, 61kg, 69kg, 77kg, 86kg, +86kg
This structure forms part of a wider global alignment that will take effect across all IWF-sanctioned competitions beginning August 1, 2026. The broader IWF framework includes eight bodyweight divisions per gender for senior and junior lifters, from which the Olympic six were carefully selected.
The adjustments are designed to minimize excessive gaps between classes and promote athlete health by reducing the incentive for drastic weight cuts a persistent issue in elite lifting.
A Sport Rebuilding Its Olympic Standing
The IWF’s ability to secure 12 events for LA28 is being viewed internally as a crucial step in restoring its relationship with the IOC, which had considered removing weightlifting from the Olympic program altogether after repeated doping scandals and internal governance crises.
Under IWF President Mohammed Jalood, reforms were accelerated over the past three years to address these concerns, including the establishment of new governance codes and enhanced anti-doping compliance mechanisms. The IOC’s decision to restore two additional medal events one per gender is thus widely interpreted as a conditional endorsement of these reforms.
Despite the symbolic win, the unchanged athlete quota of 120 lifters has created what experts are calling a “competitive bottleneck.” With 12 events instead of 10, each weight category will now host only 10 lifters instead of 12 a 16.7% reduction in field size per event.
The result is an unprecedented level of selectivity: athletes will need to rank among the global elite across the two-year qualification cycle from 2026 to 2028 to earn an Olympic berth. For emerging nations and developing federations, this poses a formidable barrier, as universality slots typically reserved for lower-ranked countries will likely be fewer than ever.
This shift effectively consolidates the competition into a smaller, more elite pool dominated by powerhouse nations such as China, the USA, and Uzbekistan, while intensifying the challenge for countries like India, Thailand, and Egypt, which are developing competitive depth but lack broad high-ranking representation.
The IWF’s 2026 structure eight weight classes per gender will underpin all qualification systems leading to LA28.
For men, the categories will be 60kg, 65kg, 70kg, 75kg, 85kg, 95kg, 110kg, and +110kg, while women will compete across 49kg, 53kg, 57kg, 61kg, 69kg, 77kg, 86kg, and +86kg at global events.
However, only six from each set will feature in the Olympics, leaving out the M60kg, M70kg, W49kg, and W57kg classes. Athletes in these omitted divisions face tough decisions either move up to an adjacent category or forgo Olympic qualification entirely.
This has sparked debate among athletes and national federations. The exclusions particularly impact lifters from Asia, where lighter bodyweight categories such as W49kg have traditionally been medal-producing divisions. For these athletes, the transition to higher weight classes will demand significant physical adaptation and technical recalibration over the next two years.
Governance Challenges and Athlete Uncertainty
While the IWF has succeeded in reshaping its competitive landscape, the process has not been without criticism. The federation has faced backlash for making rapid, unconsulted changes to its bodyweight structure including a last-minute correction in 2025 that replaced the planned men’s 98kg category with 94kg to eliminate an excessive 22kg gap between divisions.
This pattern of reactive policymaking has frustrated athletes and coaches, who have had to repeatedly adjust training regimens, nutrition plans, and long-term performance goals. The lack of consultation with national federations and even the Athletes’ Commission has drawn sharp criticism from within the sport, with calls for greater transparency and athlete inclusion in future decision-making.
As Armenian coach Pashik Alaverdyan recently noted, “These constant changes put athletes under impossible pressure. They are forced to chase moving targets first in training, then in qualification.”
The IWF’s revamped system also includes new World Standards for record-setting in each weight class. To maintain credibility while allowing athletes a realistic path to establish new marks, the federation will apply a 97% ratio of the previous world records to define the starting benchmarks for Snatch, Clean & Jerk, and Total lifts in each new category.
While this measure aims to ensure fairness, it also wipes clean several existing world records, a consequence of restructured divisions. For many athletes, that means beginning again — another layer of challenge amid the transition.
With qualification for Los Angeles beginning in late 2026, national federations now face the task of realigning their Olympic programs to the “LA Twelve.” For India and other emerging nations, this means prioritizing athletes in the confirmed Olympic classes and supporting those transitioning from discontinued divisions with specialized strength and conditioning programs.
The LA28 Games, scheduled for July 25–29, 2028, will serve as the first full test of the IWF’s reconstructed system both technically and politically. For a sport that has teetered on the edge of Olympic exclusion, this cycle represents more than just competition; it is a referendum on weightlifting’s capacity to govern itself credibly.
If the IWF can deliver on its promises of health, transparency, and stability, Los Angeles 2028 could mark not just a new chapter for the sport but a long-awaited redemption story.
Key Olympic Weightlifting Categories for LA28:
Men: 65kg, 75kg, 85kg, 95kg, 110kg, +110kg
Women: 53kg, 61kg, 69kg, 77kg, 86kg, +86kg
