Weightlifting. Yearbook 1982
Weightlifting at a New Frontier
English summary of Tyazhelaya Atletika. Ezhegodnik 1982 (Moscow: Fizkultura i Sport, 1982), pp. 3–4: the text is paraphrased, not translated.
A 1981 resolution of the CPSU Central Committee and USSR Council of Ministers called for mass sport close to homes and workplaces.
Weightlifting in numbers (1 January 1982)
- Over 342,000 participants, including about 60,000 schoolchildren in youth sports schools; over 121,000 active ranked lifters, almost 3,000 Masters and 11,500 Candidate Masters and first-class lifters.
- Trained in 1981: 40 international-class Masters, 631 Masters, 4,606 Candidate Masters and first-class lifters, 72,427 junior-rank lifters.
- 14,414 clubs, 1,393 specialised halls, 2,582 salaried coaches (1,641 with a physical-education degree), 32,199 volunteer coaches, over 30,000 certified referees.
Mass sport
- Growth is held back by lack of halls and equipment. Only 2,540 competition and 4,200 lighter barbells are made yearly, though many sports and fitness programmes need them; even leading centres are short.
- Proposals: covered outdoor platforms near workplaces and in holiday camps; more strength-fitness groups, open to children, feeding weightlifting; exhibitions by national-team lifters and lifting contests; kettlebell lifting added to the athletic-gymnastics commission's remit.
Elite sport: weak points
- Weak: Azerbaijan, Moldavia, Latvia, Tajikistan, Turkmenia, Estonia and the education system. Improved but not elite: Georgia, Vodnik, Trudovye Rezervy and most trade-union societies.
- Declining: the RSFSR and Defence Ministry organisations; the Rostov, Sverdlovsk and Khabarovsk centres. Training is poorly organised at the higher sports-mastery schools of Moscow, Leningrad, Odessa and Tallinn.
- The RSFSR lacks bases and equipped halls; Belorussia and the Defence Ministry lack qualified coaches.
- Several classes lack a reserve; at 67.5 kg nobody can contend for world or Olympic titles.
- Lax discipline, slow youth development, slow uptake of new methods, weak coach retraining and literature; the youth-school programme is overdue.
Response
For the XXIII Olympics the Sports Committee and the All-Union Research Institute of Physical Culture (VNIIFK) drew up a comprehensive target programme, assigning tasks to regional and departmental bodies. Olympic success depends on carrying it out.