Weightlifters

Mark Henry is an American powerlifter, strongman, Olympic weightlifter, and retired professional wrestler. He is best known for his appearance in WWE, where he was often referred to as the world's strongest man. In 2018, he was made an inductee to the WWE Hall of Fame. A three-time USA National Weightlifting Champion, Henry holds several weightlifting records.

Nicknamed The Pocket Hercules for his 4’10” frame, Bulgarian weightlifter Naim Suleymanoglu was one of the world’s greatest in the sport. While he initially won 2 World Championships for Bulgaria, he later won 3 Olympic gold medals and 5 World Championships for Turkey. He has also joined the Nationalist Movement Party.

Icelandic weightlifter and CrossFit athlete Sara Sigmundsdóttir was placed 3rd in the CrossFit Games twice. She has also won the 2016 Dubai Fitness Championship and appeared in the documentary Fittest on Earth: A Decade of Fitness. She now works as a trainer at CrossFit Sudurnes in Reykjanesbaer.

Apart from being a 5-time world champion, Lü Xiaojun is also a 2-time Olympic gold medalist. His gold win at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, at 37, made him the oldest weightlifter to achieve the feat. He also won a silver at the Rio Olympics. He is married to fellow world-class weightlifter Guo Xiyan.

Pyrros Dimas is a Greek politician who represented the Panhellenic Socialist Movement between 2012 and 2015. A former weightlifter, Dimas is counted among the greatest weightlifters of all time. Having won three gold medals in Olympic Games, Pyrros Dimas is the most successful Greek athlete in the history of the Olympics. He also won three gold medals in World Championships.

Matthias Steiner is a Austrian-German former weightlifter best known for winning a gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. He also won a silver medal at the World Championships as well as two silver medals at the European Championships during his career.

Tia-Clair Toomey is an Australian CrossFit Games athlete and weightlifter. As a weightlifter, she won a gold medal for Australia at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Toomey has also won five CrossFit Games Championship titles so far; she won these titles in five successive CrossFit Games starting from 2017.

Former Iranian super heavyweight weightlifter Behdad Salimi is not just an Olympic gold medalist but has also won gold medals at the Asian Games, the Asian Championships, and the World Championships. Known as the Iranian Hercules, he was once dismissed for criticizing coach Kourosh Bagheri for using abusive language.

Yossef Romano was an Israeli weightlifter who competed in the 1972 Munich Oympics in West Germany. An Israeli weight-lifting champion for nine years, Romano was among the 11 Israeli team members who were killed in the 1972 Munich massacre, an attack by a terrorist group named Black September. Romano was 32 years old at the time of his death.

Iranian weightlifter Kianoush Rostami has 2 Olympic medals in his kitty, one of them being a gold medal. He is also an Asian Champion and a 2-time World Champion. In 2017, he auctioned his Olympic gold medal to raise money for the victims of a devastating earthquake near the Iran-Iraq border.

Hossein Rezazadeh is an Iranian politician. Also a former weightlifter, he is a two-time Olympic champion and four-time World Weightlifting champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest weightlifters of all time. The Rezazadeh Stadium was built in his honor. He entered politics in 2013 and was elected as a member of the City Council of Tehran. 

Olympic gold medalist Li Wenwen is one of the most well-known weightlifters of China. She is also a national champion, an Asian champion, and a world champion. She made headlines when she revealed that she had slept on the floor in the Olympic village in Tokyo, as she found the beds too soft.

Shi Zhiyong is a Chinese professional weightlifter best known for winning a gold medal at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games. A three-time world champion, Shi has set 13 world records so far in his illustrious career. He also holds the current records for the snatch, total, and clean and jerk in the 73 kg category.

Tian Tao is a Chinese professional weightlifter best known for winning the silver medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. He has also won gold medals at the 2014 Asian Games, 2019 World Championships, and 2019 and 2020 Asian Championships.

Leonid Taranenko is a former weightlifter and coach. He is best known for winning the gold medal in the 110 kg category at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow where he represented the Soviet Union. He also won gold medals at the World Weightlifting Championships, European Weightlifting Championships, and USSR Weightlifting Championships.