Kuo Hsing-chun has achieved great success in weightlifting for Chinese Taipei.

Fares El-Bakh is the first Olympic champion from Qatar in any sport.

China's Li Fabin has become a dominant force in the 61 kilograms division of men's weightlifting.

Lesman Paredes has tasted World Championship gold for two different countries.

Solfrid Koanda became Norway's first-ever female world champion when she won a sweep of golds in the women's 87 kilograms at the International Weightlifting Federation World Championships in Bogotá, Colombia, in 2022.

Ecuador's Neisi Dajomes won Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020 in the women's 76 kilograms division.

Hidilyn Diaz made history at Tokyo 2020 by becoming the first Olympic gold medallist in the history of The Philippines. 

The greatest weightlifter from Japan, Yoshinobu Miyake is one of the world's strongest ever men when ranking lifters pound-for-pound.

At the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome he won a silver medal in the 56 kilograms bantamweight class, before a switch to the 60kg featherweight division saw him clinch Olympic golds on home soil at Tokyo 1964 and then at Mexico City 1968.

Miyake was known for his "frog" style of lifting, also known as the "Miyake pull", where he would spread out his knees to resemble the amphibian. 

During his career he set 25 world records, and he won six overall world titles.

He also claimed the Asian Games title in 1966 in Bangkok.

After his competitive career, he became the coach of the Japanese national team.

American weightlifter John Davis is a double Olympic gold medallist.

He won the over-82.5kg title at London 1948 and then the over-90kg title four years later in Helsinki.

Davis was undefeated between 1938 and 1953, a remarkable 15-year streak which also saw him win seven world titles, the Pan American Games gold medal in 1951 and 11 national crowns.

He was the first person to clean and jerk more than 400lbs and the second to post a combined total of more than 1,000lb.

His only defeat before retirement came at the 1953 World Championships when he was struggling with a thigh problem.

At one stage Davis held all of the world records in his heavyweight class.

He went on to work in the prison service before his death in 1984.

Louis Hostin is considered as the best weightlifter from France of all time.

He won two light heavyweight titles at the Olympic Games - at 82.5 kilograms at Los Angeles 1932 and Berlin 1936.

Hostin also won a silver medal in the same division at the Amsterdam 1928 Olympics.

Other accomplishments include two European titles and silver and bronze medals at the World Championships, an event which only formed in the later stages of his career.

He set 10 world records during his career and at one stage was French national champion 13 years in a row.

Chen Yanqing is one of the early stars of women's weightlifting at the Olympic Games after winning back-to-back gold medals.

The Chinese athlete triumphed at Athens 2004 at 58kg and won the same event again on home soil at Beijing 2008.

From a poor family, Chen was talent spotted and won World Championship gold in Athens in 1999.

She also won two Asian Games titles during her career, in 1998 and 2006.

Canada's Maude Charron won Olympic gold for her country in the women's 64kg division at Tokyo 2020.

She lifted a total of 236 kilograms for glory in the Japanese capital.

Charron won a silver medal at the World Championships in 2017 and back-to-back overall golds at the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and 2022.

At the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, she was named as Canada's co-flagbearer.

Aged seven, Charron said she wanted to take up weightlifting after seeing it in a film.

Her parents told her she was probably too short, but a coach said she had potential after she took up CrossFit.

North Korea's Rim Jong-sim has established herself as one of the most successful Olympic weightlifters since the introduction of women's events at Sydney 2000.

At London 2012, she won the gold medal in the 69 kilograms division and she added to that with 75kg success at Rio 2016.

Rim won the total title at the 2019 World Championships in Pattaya in Thailand.

She was also crowned as the Asian Games gold medallist at the 2018 edition in Jakarta and Palembang, and became the Asian Championships winner a year later.

At Tokyo 2020, China's Lü Xiaojun won gold in the men's 80kg class to become, at 37, the oldest Olympic weightlifting champion in the modern era.

This was his second Olympic gold after his 77kg success at London 2012, although he is in line to win that title at Rio 2016 as well due to the disqualification of Kazakhstan's Nijat Rahimov.

In London, Lü claimed a world record total of 379kg and celebrated by lifting his coach off the ground, leaving him covered in chalk handprints.

Lü is a five-time overall world champion, Asian Games winner and two-time Asian champion.

Known as the "Pocket Hercules", Turkey's Naim Süleymanoğlu is regarded by many as being the greatest weightlifter of all time.

The three-time Olympic gold medallist has been described as the strongest man who has ever lived, pound-for-pound, and stood at only four foot, 10 inches high.

He was born in Bulgaria but defected to Turkey during a trip to the World Cup Final in Melbourne in 1986, following a law which required ethnic minorities to adopt local names and banned other languages.

Süleymanoğlu, who had been forced to call himself Naum Shalamanov, became only the second person to lift three times his own bodyweight overhead in 1984.

He set 32 world records before he was 22 and won the first of his Olympic titles at 60kg in Seoul in 1988, when his peformance would have seen him win the weight division above.

At Barcelona 1992 he won another 60kg gold and he was then successful at 64kg at Atlanta 1996.

In Atlanta, he was part of a thrilling battle with Greece's Valerios Leonidis which saw the pair exchange three world record lifts at the end of the competition.

This was described as the "greatest weightlifting competition in history". 

Süleymanoğlu won seven overall world and seven European titles and broke 46 world records in all.

He failed in an audacious bid for an unprecedented fourth Olympic weightlifting gold at Sydney 2000.

After his career he went into politics, and he received the Olympic Order in 2001.

Süleymanoğlu died in 2017, aged only 50. 

Georgian-born Kakhi Kakhiashvili won three Olympic gold medals during his career, with the first for the Unified Team which competed at Barcelona 1992 following the break-up of the Soviet Union.

That came at 90 kilograms after a dispute with his coach who wanted team-mate Sergey Syrtsov to clinch gold.

Syrtsov led after the snatch and Kakhiashvili defied his coach to add extra weight for his final lift in the clean and jerk.

He set the bar at a world record of 235kg which he duly lifted to claim top spot on bodyweight rules after tying with Syrtsov.

Kakhiashvili, who had a Greek mother, then represented Greece at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 where he won 99kg and 94kg titles respectively.

He also won three overall world and three European titles during his career.

His world record in Barcelona was one of seven he set during his time on the platform, and he later worked as a coach.

Greece's Pyrros Dimas is regarded as one of the greatest weightlifters of all time, following years of dominance in the light heavyweight division.

He won three Olympic gold medals, the first of which coming at 82.5kg in Barcelona in 1992.

Dimas then added consecutive titles at 83kg and 85kg at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000.

At his home Olympic Games in Athens in 2004, Dimas won bronze at 85kg.

This saw him equal the record of American Norb Schemansky by winning medals at four consecutive Olympics.

At the World Championships, Dimas won three overall gold medals.

He was born in Albania to Greek parents and shouted "For Greece!" when making his final lift in Barcelona, which saw him become a national hero.

At the Atlanta and Athens Olympics, he served as flagbearer.

Dimas also won one overall European Championship during his career, and set 11 world records.

He was given the nicknames the "Lion of Himara" and "Midas" - with the latter a nod to his gold medals.

Showboating was part of Dimas's displays as he liked to keep the barbell lifted after the buzzer had sounded.

After retirement he moved into politics and sports governance, and currently sits on the International Weightlifting Federation Executive Board as a vice-president.