London: The Cradle of Modern Weightlifting

Gherardo Bonini

In the 1880s the sport of modern weightlifting was being established in continental Europe, particularly in the central European countries. In 1889 the German-born Eugen Sandow exhibited weightlifting in England. This raised interest in the sport and led to an international weightlifting competition being organised in London two years later, when a codification of rules were proposed. In 1989, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) re-discovered the 1891 competition and asigned it as the founding world championships. The facts of this story are related below. They detail the importance of the UK's role in the development of an unexpected sport.

The birth of international weightlifting

The IWF has been promoting a substansive investigation into the historical roots of weightlifting.1 The IWF's President, the Austrian Gottfried Schödl, has researched much forgotten history, while under the Chairmanship of the Yugoslavian historian Vladan Mihajlovic, an international committee of experts commenced working in 1981 on weightlifting history. In particular, they have been closely analysing previous attempts to produce histories. There has been a close examination of the `unofficial championships' of the past. Among the national histories of weightlifting, the Germans have been very sensitive regarding what they consider to be unofficial events, but the cultural attitude changed between the two world wars and served to remove the events which were first promoted by Germans and Austrians. In the non-German speaking countries, historical works on the championships held in the former Central Empires were neglected and are even unknown today.

Two important measures that the IWF took were the backdating of the official foundation of the federation from 1920 to 1905, and the renumbering of some of the World and European championships by elevating certain competitions to official championship status. In fact, the first international federation, the Amateur Atleten Weltunion (AAW), was founded for both weightlifting and wrestling in 1905, but it collapsed in 1907, before the Weightlifting Union was reorganised in 1912 and officially reconstituted in 1913. Even the international championships held in the intermediate years (1907-1912) were reinstituted.

It is interesting that the `sister' international federation of amateur wrestling (Fédération Internationale des Luttes Associées _ FILA) did not find it necessary to make a similar historical adjustment to its records. FILA was the ruling Federation for wrestling at the time of the Stockholm Olympics (1912) and claimed its official birth at this time.2 Under the care of the Swedish historian Peter Irden, a documentary work covering all unofficial wrestling championships from the pioneering era was published, but the reconstruction was not completely satisfactory: for example, one championship for each year was chosen as being official, while other ones of the same year were declared unofficial.3

The reconstituted weightlifting records did not follow the wrestling method of choosing one competition as the championship for a particular year, but instead embraced all the unofficial events and renamed all of them as official ones. The historian who is attentive to the evolution of this sport would point out that the European championship held in The Hague, Netherlands on 28 January 1906, under the aegis of the AAW, was for weightlifting and Greco-Roman wrestling. This competition was ignored for many decades before the 1980s, but is now considered to be official and duly labelled as the tenth championship. The second championship, actually official, has became definitely unofficial. The retrospective official adjustment of the records is the achievement of some statisticians and experts. This reconstructed history by intellectuals, usually rejected by reluctant governing bodies, was not only accepted but endorsed by the IWF.

There is much more, because at the end of 1989, three new world championships (London 1891, Milan 1899, and Vienna 1910) were officially rediscovered. The IWF showed a moment of extraordinary flexibility by renumbering again its world events: the edition of 1989 was the fifty-ninth and, due to the incorporation of the three early championships, the world championship of 1990 is now claimed to be the sixty-third, although Ture Widlund, the Swedish member of the committee of experts, led a minority opposition to this act, asserting that no championships could be official if they were not held under the aegis of an international governing body.4 Under the direct signature of the President, Schödl, two books The Lost Past. Concealed or Forgotten? (1992) and Medals and World Records in Weightlifting (1997) legitimised and endorsed these championships. The IWF's championship listings have now reached the Internet for worldwide consumption.5

An historical question

Oscar State of the UK served as IWF's General Secretary from 1960 to 1976, but he probably should not have expected the re-discovery and, above all the selection of London, as the first movement in the history of weightlifting. In 1959, he wrote a brilliant section dedicated to weightlifting in a sports encyclopeadia, in which he claimed that `the first championship open to the world was held in 1891 at Café Monica, Piccadilly, London, the winner being Lawrence Levy of England'. Each sporting discipline had its own section in that encyclopedia, which included historical details provided through questions. The first three questions in the weightlifting section were about the London competition: the first two questions repeated the information about the event's dating, on 28 March, and the exact time of the contest. The third one was more interesting for our purposes: `What were the lifts used in the first World championship?' with answers given such as `There were ten lifts, consisting mainly of repetition or alternate pressing with 56 lbs. or 84 lbs. in each hand.'6 This version was supplemented in 1986, when Mombert mentioned a Flemish (Dutch) article which appeared on 31 March 1891 reporting on the London event.7 The text affirmed that the event consisted of seven different lifts in which the Italian Zafarana failed the fifth, a full stretching of a dumb-bells overhead, weighing 40 and 50 kilos respectively. Levy then took the advantage and won the competition. Mombert concluded that the English had claimed to have hosted the first World championship, so Levy was the first World champion.

The legitimisation of 1989 sealed this claim as successful. But, the analysis of the performances of Levy in Medals and World Records in Weightlifting notes that the London event ruled on 8 and not 7 lifts and, above all, both Levy and Zafarana accomplished all the lifts, Levy being the victor due to his superior style shown in a long drawn-out competition. The IWF books do not contain sources of information for all items, as they ommitted crediting the Dutch source mentioned by Mombert.8 The same source ommitted ,or simply reckoned as unreliable, Sporting Life's report, despite this being one of the UK's most trustworthy sporting newspapers, one which was frequently mentioned and copied by continental sporting newspapers or magazines. The analysis of what the Sporting Life reported about the competition could enlighten us to the relevance of London as the initial point of international modern weightlifting.

A new challenge for the Britons

At the beginnings of the 1890s, London was both the heart of intercontinental Europe and the capital of modern sports, both amateur and professional. From the continental sporting viewpoint, British sporting authority was unquestionable, because the UK was advanced in many sports, and these were duly registered, studied, commented on and perfected. Moreover, it was seen as compulsory for continental professional athletes to visit London. Weightlifting benefited from a formidable impulse with the arrival of Eugen Sandow in 1889, particularly from his spectacular exhibitions in London. Outside England, the attention of the specialised press and experts pointed to Sandow's influence.9 In Austria, in 1890, the Österreichische Athleten Bund was established. This was the first national body for athletics (including heavy athletics,10 boxing and parts of light athletics, such as throwing events) although it did not succeed in attracting all of the Austrian related clubs. In 1891, it became Bund der Österreichische Athleten Union, which set up a national championship in 1901. In 1908 another federation was constituted and finally in 1912 a unique body merged all Austrian clubs.11 In 1891, Germany also founded a national federation for heavy athletics, and two years later organised the first national championship for weightlifting and, in a sense, founded world federation.

The London Athletic Institute, led by the notable surgeon Professor Atkinson, organised exhibitions and competitions, which were seen as prestigious and reliable. Moreover, due to a strong link between wrestling and weightlifting (the lifters were good wrestlers and vice a versa) the famous Cumberland and Westmoreland Amateur Wrestling Society had for many decades a wrestling base similar to the tradition of the Lancashire style wrestling, and took care of valid organisation and competition in weightlifting. After another series of exhibitions by Sandow at the beginning of 1891, it was judged the right time for a British answer to the respectable and admired German phenomena. On 24 January 1891, twelve lifters took part in the English championship of weightlifting, with eight exercises, seven with dumb-bells of different or similar weights for each hand plus one with a bar-bell. The results showed the British domination of the sport, with Levy, Prance, and Clifford in the top three places. The future Olympic champion, the Indian-born Launceston Elliot, also participated.12 On the continent, the event was subtly criticised by the famous Austrian newspaper Allgemeine Sport Zeitung, which stressed the inadequate standard of British lifters in respect of the light weights used, which would have been easily exceeded by Austrian and German lifters. In fact, nobody was able to lift a dumb-bell of 50.2 kilos with the left hand.13

From the British point of view, as reflected in Sporting Life's coverage, the continental challenge had to be taken very seriously:

Englishmen have always been noted for their strength of limb, and when it came to a question of muscle and power the Briton stood out in bold relief from their fellows but the fact is undeniable that the Germans and Americans have adopted the [bar]bells as the truest method of testing an athlete's strength. The Englishman has not paid much attention to this style of sport, but now that the amateurs of Albion have taken to it they will soon force their Transatlantic and German rivals to alter the figures in their record books.

The author mobilised history and tradition to justify this approach:

As long ago as the Holy Wars, Richard Coeur de Lion was acknowledged to be the grandest specimen of powerful manhood, and in almost every age the Anglo-Saxon has posed a premier when it came to a question of strength and stamina. The only ones that have cared to question this right of supremacy have been the wandering offsprings of the yeoman and "prentice boys" who were such terrors in the days when Bluff King Hal lent his presence and hands at the jousts or bouts at quarterstaff. The lifting of immense weights has been always the pride of the Briton and there are scores of old men living who can tell you how they have shouldered a sack or two of beans, of how easily they used to lift a bag of flour from the floor to the shop counter. 14

As the interest in weightlifting grew, it attracted the attentions of such patrons as Sir John Astley, who announced a great competition open to all British and Irish amateurs and professionals for 6 March 1891. This initiative was criticised by some defenders of amateurism, like the Honorary Secretary of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Amateur Wrestling Society, Moses Rigg. Rigg agreed with Astley on the cause of `national interest', but felt that amateur and professional athletes should compete separately. Notwithstanding the criticisms and the precautionary absences of Levy, who served as a judge, and Prance, the competition was successful and the public attended in good number, with the usual spectacle of Sandow, who, on 24 January broke three unofficial world records. From Canada Louis Cyr, reputed to be the world's strongest man, announced that he would also be involved.15 The enthusiasm generated gave Astley the idea of organising a great international tournament, open to amateurs, to be decided on the forthcoming Easter holiday period (27-30 March 1891) at the Café Monica International Hall in London. The competition was originally scheduled as an international tournament of weightlifting, divided into three specialities (dumb-bells, stone, and bar-bell), a wrestling tournament, with three competitions (Greco-Roman, Cumberland and Westmoreland style, and Catch-as-Catch-Can), plus a fencing competition (singlestick, foils, and broad sword). Just before the deadline for entries, participation from Austria, Belgium, Germany, and the USA was announced. Tickets at four different prices were obtainable from Mr. Bush, the Honorary Secretary of the Athletic Institute in Piccadilly, or in another kiosk in Knightsbridge. Another patron of heavy athletics, Lord Lonsdale, took care of the arrangements for the competition. Initially, it was announced there was to be a programme with 10 exercises. and it was triumphantly noticed that Levy planned to beat a series of unofficial world records.16 Were these 10 exercises known to Oscar State at the time of his weightlifting entry for the 1959 encyclopaedia?

The emergence of modern weightlifting

At the beginning of the championship week, a fundamental change was noticed in the programme which was to be of the greatest relevance for the destiny of weightlifting: the exercises for dumb-bells were separated from those for the bar-bell, which was really a dumb-bell with a long bar, an archetype of modern bar-bell. The terminology was a portent for the future, because it was clearly stated that the competitions would be first decided by a tournament for dumb-bells on 28 March and a second competition for proper `weightlifting' on 30 March. In respect of the programme originally announced, the two exercises (previously numbered seven and eight respectively) consisting of pressing a bar-bell first at 170 lbs and then at 200 lbs were put in the second event of 30 March beside ill-defined lifts with a stone.17 In the new programme of 28 March, the lifts consisted of dumb-bells of 56, 84 and 100 lbs. The exercise at 140 pounds, which Levy himself failed in the national championship of 24 January, was dropped.

Just after the First World War, the exercises with dumb-bells were also removed from the schedule of international competitions. As early as 1896, the Italian, Monticelli Obizzi, had stressed the redundancy of dumb-bell feats when the athletes have to confront the bar-bell.18 The bar-bell had been only experimentally used for a decade in Austria, Germany, and France, when, in general, official competitions scheduled a mix of exercises with dumb-bells and bar-bell. In London, on 26 March 1891, the great new concept emerged: the true scientific speciality of weightlifting had to be performed with a bar-bell. The lifts with dumb-bells belonged to another kind of lifting, and the future was with this new trend, because the bar-bell allowed the scheduling of lifts at more consistent weights. The bar-bell allowed the unity of lift (unique effort, unique lift, unique tool) and rendered the aggregation of weights redundant. To lift 100 lbs with two hands with a bar-bell is not the same as to lift two dumb-bells of 50 lbs, one in each hand, and allow an equal distribution of muscular effort.

The 1891 tournament on 28 March had eight entries, but Richmond of the USA did not compete as he was injured, which led Professor Atkinson to award him a prize as the finest looking athlete. Analysing the details of the competition published in the Sporting Life and Medals and World Records in Weightlifting, it is interesting that the London newspapers remarked on the failure of Zafarana in the sixth exercise, in the similar terms to Mombert. On the other hand, the later IWF text reports the result of the Italian's feat as being `good'. In the second exercise, `lifting of two dumb-bells of 56 pounds, one in each hand, at the same time, a minimum 20 times and maximum 40 times', the IWF's report attributes 40 times, a good accomplishment, to Levy, Zafarana, and François. However, the Sporting Life reported 40 times to Levy, 41 times to Zafarana, and only 28 times for François. The extra one given to Zafarana was not used for the final score. On the contrary, in the third exercise `lifting of two dumb-bells of 84 pounds, one in each hand, at the same time, a minimum twice and maximum four times', the IWF's text records four times for François, while the Sporting Life is silent. Zafarana, according to the Sporting Life, was overruled as he did not perform to the maximum of four times in the fourth exercise.19

The final standing made Levy the winner, Zafarana second, and François third. Levy was acclaimed as `the best amateur world dumb-bell lifter'. But, if the attendance of the public for the competition of Easter Saturday, 28 March, was remarkable, that for the competitions of Easter Monday was greater, when the international wrestling tournament was included. The three wrestling events remain unknown to the FILA, and are either considered as unofficial or are under consideration for inclusion in the records. The Allgemeine Sport Zeitung did not mention the tournament of 28 March in which the German Michael Brunhuber competed, perhaps because he was practically unknown in his homeland.20

The first weightlifting tournament

The dumb-bells event saw some changes compared with the participants in the barbell weightlifting : Zafarana, Pfaun, François, Wehlau, Brunhuber, and Szalay took part, while Levy was replaced by the young English brothers, Algernon and Rowland Spencer, and Launceston Elliot. The Sporting Life's report was not repeated in continental Europe, but it informed its readers of new records established in an exhibition by Levy, and that is all that is known of this competition. Also missing was any detailed account of the dead lifting, an exercise which nowadays is part of powerlifting having recently obtained Olympic status:

Of the preliminary exercise, with one hand gripping back and the other forward, a bar-bell of 180 lbs was brought to full arm's stretch and then dropped behind the head onto the shoulders. Pfaun and François were the only two who could do this trick cleanly. The weight was then reduced considerably enabling Brunhuber, A. Spencer, and Zafarana to do the trick. It was a close thing between Pfaun, Zafarana, and François. In the dead weight lifting, the dumb-bell experts showed up very poorly, with only the Spencer brothers doing the lifts cleanly. They kept on until 400 lbs had been put together and thus generally managed to lift the weight, with their right and left hands held in alternate positions. R. Spencer was the best at this, although Zafarana also did well. The judges decided that Zafarana and François had tied for first place. When it came to elevating the 180 lbs bar-bell, the Italian put it up eight times, while the Belgian managed seven times. This placed them first and second, with Pfaun third. The other contestants were Elliot, Szalay and Wehlau.21

There is no mention of the stone lifts. The report notes the question of the `better style' as the decisive element of Levy's victory in the dumb-bells tournament. In the Athens Olympics of 1896, the Jury, on which Levy was seated beside Prince George of Greece, proclaimed the Dane Jensen the winner thanks to better style. Elliot of Great Britain was placed second in the `two hands raising overhead with the bar-bell' notwithstanding that they raised the same weight (111.5 kilos). Levy protested against this decision.22 The British ruling in these type of contests, and in the weightlifting tournament of 30 March, was that a lift-out at a lesser weight was necessary in case of a tie.

The absolute championship

Notwithstanding the varied opinions of the London feats on the continent, the English capital became the catalyst for the strongest men of Europe. At that time, weight carrying or other exhibitions of strength, like `back lifting' of tables (carrying persons or not) or animals were common, but the international exhibition at the end of March 1891 captured the interest of the public. The European continent went its own way. On 15 September 1891 Vienna hosted a great performance by two champions, both superior to Levy, namely Franz Stöhr and Wilhelm Türk, who were holders of several unofficial world records.23 For the Londoners, Levy and Zafarana were the best of the amateurs, although the professionals, thanks to Sandow's performances, had shown a marked superiority, and now the strong professionals were called upon to determine the absolute champion of the world.

Louis Cyr from Montreal went to London, his reputation enriched by a belt won in the USA, given by Richard Fox of the Police Gazette. On the other hand, the reputation of the Italian lifters also increased. With the patronage of Louis Attila and Sandow's former tutor, Cosimo Molino paired up with Zafarana. The pair adopted the pseudonyms Romulus (Molino) and Remus (Zafarana).24 Just a few days after the arrival of the French Canadian marvel, Professor Atkinson and Lord Lonsdale gave Sandow the world champion's belt with a diploma which was illustrated by a line of the flags of the superpowers of weightlifting: Great Britain, Russia, Sweden, Canada, Italy, France, the USA, and Germany. During the award ceremony, Atkinson took the opportunity to celebrate those old English sports which `made Englishmen sturdy, brave and humane'.25 The Sporting Life began a series of articles preparing for the big event.26 The champions exhibited their muscles and their opinions, provoking their opponents, and searching for a compilation of feats of strength more favourable to their respective skills. Attila affirmed that his pupil, Romulus, was prepared to do battle with Cyr in three feats of pure weightlifting. Cyr replied that he had the right to propose a further three feats of his choice. A newspaper column signed by Lemaire affirmed that Cyclops and Knocke were unique and comparable with Cyr. Several long articles provided good publicity, and each champion, Cyr, Sandow and Romulus, went into print.

Hercules and Samson exhibited separately. The German Schmitt-Michel was awarded a Gold Challenge Record Medal for finger lifting, having raised 560 lbs. There are some references to an improbable agreement for the Heavy Weight Lifting Championship of the World. Cyr first proposed nine feats: heaviest dumb-bells with right and left hand, overhead and in front of the breast; dead lifting with left, right and both hands; back lifting; and finger lifting. Sandow felt that the exercise with dumb-bells ending up in front of the breast was trickery, or that it gave the corpulent Cyr too much advantage. He ended by saying that in weightlifting the men from Southern Prussia had a clear racial superiority. Sampson expressed his interest in single exercises, supported with a great stake of money, and he and Hercules proposed seven exercises, four with dumb-bells, one with bar-bell, plus a lying press and harness lifting. At the end of the year, Samson was also awarded a prize for being the champion of Harness Heavy Weight Lifting. Cyr, who the Sporting Life identifies as a `British subject', asked Samson if he was the champion of Great Britain. However, the appeal to nationalism did not recover the situation. Cyr's great performance on 19 February 1892 provided proof of his unreachable prowess, and in fact terminated the attempts to organise a great world championship. An account of list of current records, first published in New York by the Spirit of the Times and later by Vienna's Allgemeine Sport Zeitung, listed over twenty amateur records, some of them belonging to Levy.27 It was recognition of the brilliance of the season.

The regulations

The big professional events vanished, but England could now become the permanent home of modern weightlifting, thanks to developments in the field of regulations. The authority of Londoners was guarantee enough. An unlikely figure, that of Gilbert Elliot,28 father of `Marvel Boy' Launceston, drew up a scheme on 21 February 1892 for rules governing all the specialities of weightlifting. The initiative passed to individual exercises with the bar-bell, now the fundamental element of true weightlifting. This attempt demonstrated how the British approached weightlifting. For Elliot, an arrangement had to be found

(1) as to the definition and description of the modes by which weights are lifted; (2) concerning feats of tour de force, as separate from feats of endurance; (3) to frame rules to meet special feats not included in the definitions and classification contemplated in (1); (4) to frame rules contemplating competitions in which all sorts of weight-lifting might be fixed up.

In the early 1890s the term `weightlifting' was a general category, not specifically identified with bar-bell exercises. Now, in February 1892, Elliot proposed definitions for all categories concerning the lifting of weights. Against the ungenerous attacks of continental experts,29 he proposed an exact definition of the jerk and press, with strict angles of the body. He also proposed a swinging motion, that was hated on the continent, but he did not individualise the correct movements for the snatch. In the field of competition, he left the jury discretion on how the exercises were to be performed. The separation of endurance tests (or repetition lifting of a particular weight) from weightlifting proper is important. Continental competitions scheduled this method of lifting, alongside other exercises, until the first years of the twentieth century. Elliot proposed a maximum of three marks for each exercise, the competitor to receive a mark only if the lift was correctly achieved. So far as the term `correct' was concerned, only Obizzi agreed with the British proposal. Austrian and German traditions tolerated de jure and de facto unorthodox movements that enabled the athlete to carry out the exercise successfully. The reaction to Elliot's proposal was lukewarm. Levy, who had originally declared his availability to discuss the subject of the rules, did not respond. Moses Rigg responded through the columns of the Sporting Life.30 He claimed that Elliot's proposal was not a code, but something similar to an Act of Parliament. What should count was the weight which the athlete was capable of lifting correctly. He stated that theoretically swing and jerk were incorrect movements, yet Lord Lonsdale, before the beginning of the 1892 championship asked for straight and steady lifting after the second exercise. The Allgemeine Sport Zeitung stressed that some competitors should have been disqualified for incorrect movements. Yet the incorrectness was necessary for the achievement of the performance. Sportsmen and spectators loved achievement and records, and they wanted the competition to allow a method of lifting that would facilitate spectacle. It is interesting to note that the `incorrectness' attributed to swinging and jerking, as interpreted in the British competitions, was the rapid movement, separating the initial snatch from the ground, and demonstrating at least a clear perception of modern weightlifting, even though in a confused and unsystematic manner. The publication of Elliot's ideas concluded the season of 1891 and saw the launch of modern weightlifting emanating from the UK.31 Elliot accepted Rigg's criticism: that the heaviest lifts, which show no skill, have to be separated from endurance lifts and special feats. He took no offence at the accusation of his scheme as an Act of Parliament: indeed the Acts were not followed in their genuine spirit, but they remained the groundwork of law. The competition of January 1891 was a demonstration of weightlifting's infancy, and Lord Lonsdale was courageous to recommend the adoption of a rationalised style of movements. Elliot hoped that his scheme of rules would be seriously considered.

Conclusion

The diffusion of clubs practising weightlifting and the weakness of the native gymnastic culture prevented British weightlifting from taking advantage of the spectacular exhibitions of amateurs and professionals of 1891/1892 and inaugurating the organisation of weightlifting in the UK. It was not until 1911 that the British Amateur Weight Lifters Association (BAWLA) was founded, notwithstanding the efforts of independent weightlifting masters such as Szalay and the presence of such champions as Levy, Elliot, and Clifford. Symbolically, the fact that a British subject won the first Olympic weightlifting event in 1896 was consistent with the boom of weightlifting in the UK. However, organisation in the UK was more casual than on the Continent. Europe had more facilities (such as gym schools and craftsmen of weights) and more specialised clubs and dedicated masters. It was not an accident that Levy, on the occasion of his victory in the British championship, recalled the lore of Professor Hubbard of Birmingham's Athletic Institute and that of the London German Gymnastic Society. It is a mistake to attribute to the British tradition an ignorance of the technical basis of weightlifting, but they did not have the cultural tradition to arrive at the same conclusions as their continental counterparts. However, the noble cult of strength and correctness, as well as boxing, was entrenched among British experts (and Rigg and Elliot were not the best in the market), as was the individualism of a modern, correct style, a sportsmanlike competition and a scientific execution of the sport. The continentals had developed three separated exercises (snatch, jerk, and press), with dumb-bells of gymnastic origins together with the bar-bell which was derived from it. The emancipation from a gymnastic culture was slow and it needed time to develop. The British first conceived the pure and genuine movement of modern weightlifting with the bar-bell, a bar with weights, that had to be lifted by the athlete. For them, it took a long time to achieve a diffusion of clubs and it took them time to arrive at the same conclusions as the Europeans due to this lack of clubs and the authoritative masters to guide them.

References

Bonini, Gherardo, The First Italian Dictionary of Weightlifting (Florence, 1999)

Buchanan, Ian, Great Britain and the First Modern Olympic Games, The Sports Historian, 17 (1997)

Chapman, David, Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the beginnings of bodybuilding (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994)

Desbonnet, Edmond, La Force Physique: traité d'athlétisme (Paris: Berger Levrault & Cie, 1901)

Kampmann, Ernst August, Aus der Geschichte des Deutschen Kraftsports, Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Alten Athleten Deutschlands (Kassel, 1950)

Mallon, Bill, The 1896 Olympic Games (London: McFarland, 1998)

Mombert, Albert, Geschiedenis Gewichtheffens (1820-1985), PhD thesis, University of Leuven, 1986

Schödl, Gottfried, Medals and World Records: 100 Years of Olympics, 105 Years of World Championships (Budapest: International Weightlifting Federation, 1997) (1997a)

Schödl, Gottfried, The Lost Past: concealed or forgotten? (Budapest: International Weightlifting Federation, 1997) (1997b)

State, Oscar, Weightlifting, in Harvey, Charles (ed.), Encyclopedia of Sport, (London: Sampson Merston & Law, 1959), pp. 324-6.

Webster, David, The Sons of Samson, Volume 1 (Glasgow: Strength Games, 1993)

Weider, Ben, Louis Cyr: L'homme le plus fort du monde (Montreal: Beauchemin, 1958)

Young, Darlene, Weightlifting, in Christensen, Karen and Levinson, David (eds), The Encyclopedia of World Sports, From the Ancient Times to the Present (London: ABC-CLIO, 1996), pp. 1154-8

Newspapers

Allgemeine Sport Zeitung

Sporting Life

Websites

http://www.iwf.net.

http://www.uni-leipzig.de/

http://www.worldsport.com

Notes

1 The main reference for this first article is Schödl, 1997, pp. 8, 151-2.

2 For statistics and other details, see http://www.iwf.net and http://www.uni-leipzig.de. Complete results of international competitions of amateur wrestling appear at http://www.uni-leipzig.de/wrestling.htm and http://www.worldsport.com. See also Young, 1996, p. 1156.

3 Irden was not involved in the final decision.

4 Ture Widland, private correspondence.

5 http://www.iwf.net; http://www.uni-leipzig.de/weight.htm; http://www.uni-leipzig.de/wrestling.htm; http://www.worldsport.com.

6 State, 1959, pp. 324-6.

7 Mombert, 1986, pp. 5-6.

8 No references or bibliography appears in The Lost Past, although bibliographical provenance is given in the text for some points. Schödl, 1997, p. 40 gives a statistical description of the 1891 event.

9 For Sandow, see Chapman, 1994. Reports on his performances are given in Allgemeine Sport Zeitung, 10 November 1889, pp. 1285-1286, 17 November 1889, pp. 1306-1307, and, 26 October 1890, p. 1274.

10 Heavy athletics was a term used mostly in Continental Europe to define weight lifting, wrestling, putting the shot and throwing heavy weights.

11 Kampmann, 1950, p. 98.

12 Sporting Life, 26 January 1891, p. 3.

13 Allgemeine Sport Zeitung, 15 February 1891, p. 171.

14 Sporting Life, 26 January 1891, p. 3.

15 See Weider, 1958.

16 Sporting Life, 17 March 1891, p. 4.

17 Sporting Life, 26 March 1891, p. 1.

18 Schödl, 1997a, pp. 27-8.

19 Sporting Life, 30 March 1891; Schödl, 1997b, p. 40.

20 For the participants in this tournament and the historical doubts about the amateur status of some of the contestants, see Bonini, 1999.

21 Sporting Life, 31 March 1891, p. 4.

22 Mallon, 1998, p. 112.

23 Allgemeine Sport Zeitung, 20 September 1891, p. 1016.

24 It was common at this period to adopt suitable names to heighten the status of the competitor.

25 Sporting Life, 14 November 1891, p. 3.

26 Sporting Life, 18 November 1891, 20 November 1891, 25 December 1891, 6 February 1892, and 11 February 1892. For biographical sketches of some of the champions present in London, see Webster, 1993.

27 The Spirit of the Times list was reprinted in Schödl, 1997b, pp. 19-20. Allgemeine Sport Zeitung reprinted it on 17 July 1892, pp. 648-9. For a critical discussion of the discrepancies between the two lists, see Bonini, 1999, pp. 15-18.

28 Buchannan, 1997.

29 British weightlifting was often disregarded, for instance, by the Obizzi. See Bonini, 1999, p. 69. It was also attacked by Edmond Desbonnet: see Desbonnet, 1901, p. 192.

30 Sporting Life, 5 March 1892, p. 7.

31 Sporting Life, 12 March 1892, p. 8.