Weightlifting athletes compete in body mass categories and thus can be successful in winning medals at a range of body mass. Currently, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) recognizes 10 body mass categories for males and females. The scaling formula we derived to compare weightlifting performances across a range of body mass can easily be implemented in the competition software to determine the overall best lifters. This is an improvement over current methods that do not accurately account for differences in body mass and result in bias or yield large variations even with small differences in body mass despite identical performances.

Reference: Huebner M, Meltzer DE, Bjarnason Á, Perperoglou A. Comparison of Olympic-Style Weightlifting Performances of Elite Athletes: Scaling Models Account for Body Mass. Medicine and science in sports and exercise. 2023 Dec;55(12):2281.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10662604/

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