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WorldNet Service Installation Disk - Cybercathlon Games and Interactive Tour of Olympic Museum (1996).ISO
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00810_Field_st13.txt.txt
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1996-06-03
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Competitions between strongmen
go back thousands of years and
can be found in legends and
traditions all over the world.
Dating back to the Greeks, our
ancestors proved their manhood
by lifting huge objects like rocks
and boulders. In Scotland,
evidence has been found of
"manhood stones", which were
lifted and tossed to prove
masculinity and leadership. To
this day, the lifting of stones is a
popular pastime in the Basque
provinces of Spain and France.
By the mid-1860s, weightlifting
had become popular throughout
Europe and athletic clubs for
strongmen could be found all
over the continent. Weightlifting
was included in the first modern
Olympics in 1896. At that time,
weights were simple and could
not be adjusted. Weightlifting took
its present form at the 1928
Olympics, when disc barbells
appeared.
Currently, there are only two
accepted styles of lift -- the
snatch, where the weightlifter
grasps the barbell with both
hands palms downward and lifts
the weights in one continuous
motion, then raises the bar at
arm's length over the head; and
the clean-and-jerk, where the
lifter clutches the bar with both
hands palms down and lifts it in
one movement to the shoulders,
rests, and then lifts the bar over
the head. The Olympic
competition is divided into ten
categories of body weight. Only
men compete.
The legendary weightlifter Soviet
Vasily Alekseyev, who tipped the
scales at 337 lbs., set 80 world
records from 1970 to 1977. He
won back-to-back Gold medals in
1972 and 1976.