IWF World Weightlifting Championships 2015

Before I get too much into it, I just want to say that the videos imbedded here are all from HookGrip.  They take some fantastic video of these weightlifters.

Alas, it’s all over.

On November 20^th, some of the best weightlifters from around the world converged on Houston and began throwing gauntlets onto the platform in the form of huge numbers in the snatch and the clean and jerk, some of them good enough to take home medals, others world records, and still others will find a way into our memories and become legends.

I was incredibly excited about this year for a number of reasons after following last year’s world championships in Almaty, Kazakhstan and the biggest reason among them was the potential depth of the fields in the weight classes that I follow the most closely; men’s 105 kg and 105+ and the women’s 75+ category.  Heavyweights and Superheavyweights all.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be but all of it was for understandable reasons.  First of all, the men’s heavyweight division looked like it might have four former world record holders and a former world champion for good measure.

MEN’S 105 KG WEIGHT CLASS

Dmitry Klokov retired from competitive weightlifting and appears to be moving on to other ventures as a businessman and cameraman (he was at the World Championships this year in Houston recording much of the competition… if I had a VIP pass, what did he have?)

Andrei Aramnau is out of the mainstream when it comes to weightlifting and, search as I have, I haven’t been able to find out what has gone on with him the past seven years.  He followed up a triple world record as a 20 year old in Beijing with… nothing, thus far.

Ruslan Nuridinov held the world record in the clean and jerk at 239 kilograms last year for roughly one minute… it was broken on the very next lift.  I didn’t see any news about him leading up to the world championships but my guess is he stayed out for the same reason as…

Ilya Ilyin laid waste to another weight class and record book last year with his do-or-die 242 kg clean and jerk.  What I didn’t realize until just a few weeks ago is he announced quite a while ago (February) that he wasn’t competing in the world championships this year because he wanted to focus on the Rio Olympics next year.  He wants three straight gold medals and if successful in Rio, I’m willing to bet nearly anything that he will go for an unprecedented fourth straight in Tokyo in 2020.  Priorities people.

This left Russian David Bedzhanyan as one remaining podium member from last year competing this year.  I was definitely excited about seeing him lift for two main reasons; he’s one of those weird power-jerk people and he might just be my favorite of these five.

MEN’S 105+ KG WEIGHT CLASS

This class looked to be a replay of last year in Almaty between Russians Aleksei Lovchev and Ruslan Albegov and Iranian Behdad Salimi.

Salimi had to pull out in late October due to a knee injury that from what I’ve read has required surgery but hopefully will not take too long to rehab in preparation for Rio.

Albegov was a healthy scratch and from what I can tell it was due to the qualification process for the Rio Olympics.  At a handful of events, weightlifting teams are awarded points based on how their athletes finish.  Based on these points, teams are awarded a certain number of spots in the Rio Olympics.  Therefore, if the Russian team thought that they might be able to include another lifter other than Albegov and score more points, they might (and probably did).

THE LIFTING (56 KG MEN)

It all started with the smallest of lifters in the 56 kg weight class (less than 123.5 pounds).  24 year old Om Yun-Choi of North Korea was the obvious favorite having won the gold medal at the London Olympics and then following that up with the gold at the World Championships in 2013 and 2014.  On top of the medals, he is one of only five men to have ever lifted more than triple their body weight in the clean and jerk.

Let that sink in for just a minute…

Despite that, it was Jingbao Wu who stole the show in the snatch portion of the competition by breaking a record that had been one of the oldest on the books.

Despite that, it wasn’t enough.  Wu’s second clean and jerk gave him a total of 305 kg.  However, Om Yun-Choi hadn’t even taken his first clean and jerk yet.  After that first attempt, Wu held a 6 kg advantage over Choi and after failing in his last attempt at 166 kg, he had to hope that was enough.

At this point, the competition was over except for Om Yun-Choi’s last two attempts.  His first of the two was to break his own world record in the clean and jerk and tie him with Jingbao Wu (giving him the gold medal because of his lighter bodyweight).

  

After this, his celebration got a little carried away (justifiably so) and I was more than a little surprised to see that he had decided to attempt another lift at 175 kg.  After completing the clean portion with relative ease, he barely got the bar off his chest for a failed attempt at the jerk.  Personally I agree with the assessment of the commentators who said that he had celebrated the previous lift too much and since there was nothing riding on the last attempt, he may not have prepared for it as he otherwise would have.

THE LIFTING (77 KG MEN)

Fast forward a few days to the 77 kg weight class (169.8 pounds).  The favorite was undoubtedly Lu Xiaojun, gold medalist in 2012 and three time world champion (2009, 2011, and 2013).  He was one of the few lifters in Houston that I thought had a realistic chance for a triple world record if, of course, he was having a good week of lifting.  He came in the world record holder in the snatch at 176 kg and the world record in the clean and jerk was 210 kg.  His opening lifts were at 170 and 201 meaning he had a very real chance to break both.

Alas, the meet was likely considered a disappointment by Xiaojun as he missed his final snatch attempt (at a would-have-been world record weight of 177kg) and then followed it up by missing all three clean and jerk attempts.  To make matters worse, to my relatively untrained eye, it didn’t look like he was particularly close on any of them.

A funny thing happens though when favorites don’t perform up to what is expected of them.  It leaves a huge hole on top of that podium and all of a sudden, it seems accessible to anyone.  In this weight class, it was Kazak Nijat Rahimov who stepped up and grabbed his opportunity.

THE LIFTING (105 KG MEN)

Looking at the names above who did not compete this year, it’d be easy to think that it was a substandard year for the heavyweights but that could not be further from the truth.  While there may not have been any world records broken, here’s something to consider; the top two lifters in the world (Ilyin and Nuridinov) did not compete but of the top five finishers, David Bedzhanyan was the oldest at 27 years old.  The other four of the top five were 23, 23, 21, and Armenian Simon Martirosyan who finished a strong 5^th at 18 years old.

In the end, it was a Kazak who won the heavyweight category comfortably (with a moment of consternation), it just wasn’t the one we expected.  Alexandr Zaichikov hit a snatch of 191 kg and a clean and jerk of 230 for a 421 kg total.  These are all of his successful lifts (186 and 191 in the snatch and then 225 and 230 in the clean and jerk).

Zaichikov did not waltz up to the top of the podium without Bedzhanyan being heard.  The Russian who has held the world record in the clean and jerk two separate times opened lower than I expected at 225 and then followed it up with 231, again lower than I expected.  Given that both lifts were successful, he was sitting in second place overall and first in the clean and jerk after Zaichikov missed his final clean and jerk attempt at 233 kg.

Bedzhanyan went for it all, attempting a 242 kg clean and jerk which would match Ilya Ilyin’s world record and win him the overall gold.

Even with nine world records falling, this might have been a top five lift in my book.

THE LIFTING (75, 75+ KG WOMEN)

The superheavyweight class for the women was another that had a lifter with the potential to set a triple world record.  The reason for that was simple; it was last year at the world championships that Russian Tatiana Kashirina did exactly that with a 155/193/348 performance in which she didn’t even use all of the attempts she could have.

I hate to call a triple gold medal day with a 148/185/333 line underwhelming but it felt so.  She missed her third snatch attempt that was below her own world record and then missed two of her three clean and jerk attempts… and still put up a total that was equal to the world record before she obliterated it last year at Almaty.  Hopefully the former holder of that record, Lulu Zhou, will be healthy next year and the two of them will be able to go head to head again.

The heavyweight category was far more intriguing for many reasons that go well beyond sport.  On her third snatch attempt, North Korean Rim Jong Sim appeared to hurt herself.  She collapsed to the platform and had to be helped back to the warm up area.  I figured, along with many I’m sure, that she would retire and Kang Yue of China would take a 6 kg lead into the clean and jerk portion.  Rim Jong Sim would collect her silver medal for the snatch and that would be that.

However, that was not the case.  She came out not one, not two, but three times to attempt a clean and jerk.  To say the least, they were not pretty since she was battling in all probability a serious hip and/or knee injury.  Somehow she gutted through a successful lift at 150 and then, with the entire crowd behind her, she succeeded at 155 which put her in second place in the clean and jerk portion on body weight.  Again, I thought she would call that good but she came out for her third attempt at 157, apparently defying doctor’s advice backstage.  Had she been successful, it would have tied her with Kang Yue and she would have been in first place based on bodyweight.

It wasn’t to be but it did bring up interesting issues about different cultures around the world and their thoughts on sports.  News came out fairly quickly that she had been told to retire by both doctors and coaches and she refused.  I sincerely hope this is the case.  I’m sure that the government of North Korea puts pressure on its athletes to perform for the good of the country.  I just hope that it’s more of a cultural pressure as opposed to the government blacklisting her if she had indeed retired.

Whatever the motivation, Rim Jong Sim’s triple silver medal was simply epic.

IT’S ALEKSEI LOVCHEV’S WORLD, WE JUST LIVE IN IT

The superheavyweight men’s weigh class was another that had the potential to disappoint.  Between Albegov and Salimi, the past five 105+ champions were absent (Salimi from 2010 to 2012 and Albegov in 2013 and 2014).  It looked like it was Russian Aleksei Lovchev and a bunch of other guys competing for spots on the podium.  In addition, there was a rumor around the Russian National Championships that Lovchev had to hit his 245 clean and jerk to show the team that he was still in good enough shape.

This is the same guy who hit a 220 kg snatch (remember, the world record is 214) from blocks in training and a relatively easy 257 clean and jerk just a year ago at the world championships.  Admittedly, I was nervous for Lovchev.  This had all the makings of a letdown meet where he could still easily have a triple gold performance that was “disappointing.”

I needn’t have worried.  His first snatch attempt was more modest than last year (200 kg versus 205 a year ago) and it was flawless.  Apparently 200+ kg snatches felt easy this year as five different men succeeded at or above that weight (combined they were 9 for 11 at or above 200 kg).  Lovchev’s second snatch at 206 was also good but one lift later, he was sitting in second because Georgian Lasha Talakhadze hit a 207 mark.  With the last snatch attempt for all the men in Houston, Lovchev attempted 211 (just 3 kg below the current world record) and made it look easy.

At this point, I knew it was over.  Lovchev looked fast and strong and the clean and jerk is his better lift.  He was 4 kg clear of second place and 8 kg ahead of third place.  Nobody was going to make up that difference.

His opener was at 242 kg and he stood it up as if he had an empty barbell up there (to the gasps of the Houston crowd that hadn’t seen him lift before).  At this point Talakhadze had a (207/238) 445 kg total and was attempting 247 kg.  In a development that helped clinch events to come, he got 247 overhead but missed the lift because his elbows had not been completely locked out as is required.  Talakhadze came back and succeeded at that weight on his third attempt, moving him into first place over Lovchev by 1 kg.

Lovchev came out and hit 248 easily, giving him a total of 459 as well as clinching a triple gold performance (Mart Seim of Estonia also clean and jerked 248 but weighed in 11 kg heavier than Lovchev).  He had made all five attempts and had put forth a total just 3 kg below that which Albegov did last year to win the title.

And then this happened…

264 kilograms.  582 pounds.

Lovchev broke two of the oldest records in weightlifting and made it look frightfully easy.  More importantly, he put together a performance that nobody in the world right now can match.  Salimi is the current world record holder in the snatch but his best clean and jerk is (I believe) 256.  That matched with his world record gives a total of 470.  Albegov has snatched 210 and clean and jerked 255 which combine to a theoretical total of 465.  Lovchev just put up a 475 total and I think he could have hit a 214 or 215 snatch as well as a 265 or 266 clean and jerk.  There is one man in the world right now capable of a 480 kg total and it’s not Salimi or Albegov.

BIG PICTURE

I was lucky enough this year to be in Houston for the last two days of competition.  Everything I talked about with regards to the heavyweight and superheavyweight classes (75, 75+, 105, and 105+) I was able to see in person.  It’s certainly not the last time that I take in such an event.  I will say that sitting through such an event is not for everyone but seeing these men and women go to the limits of their body and sometimes beyond is more than a little inspiring.  Feeling and hearing the enormous weights thudding back to the ground after a successful lift is intoxicating and lastly, the crowd is so much fun.  Flags were everywhere throughout the venue and ranged in size from pocket-sized to needing two or ideally three people to hold it up.  Iran and Kazakhstan both had large, vocal contingents cheering on two of weightlifting’s more powerful teams.

There are going to be events before then but now the focus shifts to Rio.  Ilya Ilyin will be back, Albegov and Salimi will have to contend with greatness in their ranks, and maybe, just maybe, Kashirina will be challenged.

One thing to remember is that an athlete’s peak is fleeting in weightlifting and before long, all these athletes will be retired or be reduced to a shadow of their former selves.  However, don’t weep for the future for it’s well tended to.

Four time world champion Om Yun-Choi is 24.  His main rivals this year, Jingbao Wu of China and Kim Tuan Thach of Vietnam are just 26 and 21, respectively.  Lijun Chen (China, 62 kg) broke two world records this year in the clean and jerk and the total and is just 22.  American CJ Cummings finished in 31^st place this year in the 69 kg class but he is only 15 years old.  Lu Xiaojun may be 31 but of the top seven finishers in the 77 kg weight class, only one is older than 23.  Artem Okulov (Russia, 85 kg) won silver in the snatch, gold in the clean and jerk, and gold overall, and is just 21.

The women’s side looks similarly rosy for the future.  Huihua Jiang (China, 48 kg) took home two golds (including the overall) and a silver and will turn 18 at the end of January.  The top three finishers in the 53 kg weight classes are all 24 with years left of top level competition.  Wei Deng (China, 63 kg) took home three golds and an 11 kg margin of victory in the total and is just 22.  Rim Jong Sim of North Korea finished just 2 kg from an overall gold while seriously injured but at 22 years old, we should see her again.  Lastly, Tatiana Kashirina has an impressive collection of gold medals already and is still just 24.

On to Rio…

Greece... and Italy, Portugal, and Ireland

Somewhat surprisingly, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras managed to hammer out a deal with the leaders of the rest of the Eurozone after a 17-hour marathon session in which there was actually a fear at one point that Tispras had fled the proceedings.  More surprisingly, the Greek Parliament responded to the deal – which is worse than the deal that the Greek people could have had but voted down – by approving it by a vote of 229-64 (with 6 abstaining).

The terms of the agreement (or the few that I could very easily find) were hardly surprising for a country in a budgetary crisis: increased revenues and decreased expenses.  In order for the bailout package to be sent to Greece, various tax rates will have to be raised, various tax loopholes will have to be closed, and retirement expenditures will have to be cut through the elimination of early retirement and raising the retirement age.

While there are still hoops to be jumped through, it appears that a Grexit has been avoided…

-          Quick Tangent – Why do we need a catchy nickname for everything these days?  It bugs the you-know-what out of me.  I think it started several years ago when people responded to a (relatively) mild economic downturn by calling it the Great Recession.  I will say that it was the worst downturn the United States has had since the Great Depression and therefore it’s almost worthy of such a nickname but was that the best we could do?  From the Great Recession to everything ending in –gate to #Grexit, we search far too much for something to fill up a hashtag so we might be able to someday say that something we said is trending… and I think it’s stupid.  Rant over.

My goal here is to examine what happened, why it happened, who came out ahead, and who didn’t (spoiler alert: Greece) and I’ll try to put it all in context for you based on what I know about the global economy.

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT

Yep, we’re going to start there.  I always start with GDP because when you peel back the first layer of an economic situation, it’s the first thing you see.  It can be good or bad or “meh” but diagnostically, it’s a good place to start.  Slightly more specifically, it’s the change in GDP that we’re more concerned about.  If I say that the United States produced $17.4 trillion in inflation-adjusted goods and services in 2014, that doesn’t tell you very much.  However, if I were to tell you that the world produced $75.8 trillion in that same year and since 2003, the US GDP has grown between 1.66% and 6.67% (with one exception) and 2014 fit that pattern (3.88% higher than 2013) it paints the picture of a healthy economy.  Yes, despite what anyone is telling you heading into the 2016 election cycle, the US economy is healthy.

Moving on.

Sorry, I lied.  Before I move on, a quick note.  The European Union consists of 28 countries but for this analysis, we’re more concerned with the Eurozone which is comprised of 19 countries that all use the Euro as their currency.  They are, in very particular (alphabetical) order:

Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.

When you look at the same picture for Greece, it doesn’t look quite so rosy.

While the entire Eurozone took a hit from 2008-2010 (like the rest of the world did), it managed to recover to some extent and stabilize their GDP.  Greece, on the other hand, peaked in 2008 and has dropped 33% from then until 2014 and that doesn’t even include any inevitable drops that have happened in the past year or so.

Unfortunately, as we peel back the layers, the picture only gets worse.  If you plot their GDP from 2002-2012 (no debt data was available for 2013 or 2014) and compare it to their total debt, it looks like this:

Compared to their GDP, Greece’s debt reached 164% a full three years ago and again, the picture hasn’t gotten any better in the past several years.

This is where we separate a little bit from the numbers and go to a place where economists (including me) would rather us not go.  The truth of the matter is that economics is based on many things that are concrete (or “scientific” if you prefer) but the most accurate definition of economics that I’ve ever heard starts like this:

“The science of human behavior…”

Human behavior is only so scientific and it’s one of the reasons why assertions from economists come with a laundry list of assumptions.  This isn’t to say that these are bad assumptions but they do exist.

There are countries in the world with worse debt/GDP ratios and all we’re talking about is Greece.  What gives?  Why is the debt in the US which is about 40 times larger than Greece’s so much more viable?  In many ways, the answer is simple; investors trust the US (a lot) more than Greece.

DEBT… HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?

When a country spends more money than it raises in taxes, it must borrow the money to make up the difference.  In a (mostly) free market global economy, that means that the United States is going to the same place as Valero or Microsoft do when they need to raise money.  If we assume that there are a finite number of dollars (or any other unit of currency you prefer), then that means that private companies have to compete for investment dollars with governments and in fact, this is exactly the case.

This is where the term “crowding out” comes from.  If the government runs a budget deficit, they are taking up dollars that could go to capital investment in the private sector.  Overall, not a great thing.  While deficit spending isn’t the worst thing in the world, doing so year after year can be a very bad thing because of all those dollars that could be going to the private sector where they know how to spend a dollar efficiently.  I may identify myself as a Democrat, but when I look at the ledger of the US for the past six or seven years, the economist in me cringes.

Ok, private companies don’t get the investment dollars they should, so what?  When a company or a country goes to the market and borrows those dollars, people do not give them the money out of the goodness of their hearts; they expect a return.  As is often the case, the return on these investments is inversely proportional to the quality of the investment.  While this may not make sense, it comes down to supply and demand (doesn’t it always in economics?).  Let’s say you are the US government and you need to borrow some money to cover your indulgent spending.  Given the fundamentals of your economy, lenders are tripping over themselves to lend you money and this drives down the interest rate that you’ll have to pay on the loan.  Meanwhile, in Greece, far fewer people want to loan you money since it’s riskier.

Sure enough, if we look at the rates that you could get for investing in Greek or American government debt over the past year or so, you’ll see exactly that difference.  The rate on a 10-year piece of debt in this country has been between 1.7% and 2.6% while in Greece, it spiked up to just over 19% before settling lower in the past few days.  The lowest rate on Greek debt was nearly a year ago when it was just under 6% and it’s only climbed since then.

OK, WE’VE GOT THE BACKGROUND NOW…

The best analogy that I can come up with at this point is that of a mortgage.  You go to a lender and come up with a loan and a payment plan for your house.  The payments are monthly and are based on the interest rate which is based (in part) on your asset and income situation and your credit score.  You, as the homebuyer (or as the country in this little metaphor) have an income that is in excess of your required monthly payments so you go about your business normally.  In this scenario, for curious reasons, your credit card debt gets added to your mortgage every month.  While you have enough to cover the mortgage payment on your income, when you add the credit card expenses, now you’re spending a bit too much money and have to go borrow more money (see where this is going?).  As you borrow more and more money, the interest rates keep going up and therefore the monthly payments keep going up.  In the middle of all this, you lost your job and had to find another one that paid about 85 cents on the dollar.

Left unchecked, this is the problem with large enough government debt.  We’ve become basically numb to the fact but it is a fact that if debt and interest rates get high enough, the payments that are due exceed a country’s ability to pay them.  When you combine the fact that Greece is not an economic powerhouse that produces huge quantities of goods that everyone wants with their increasing debt and then you throw a global economic downturn into the mix, you get to the point where they literally cannot pay their bills and then default on their loans.  This hasn’t actually happened yet but it is a very real possibility.

AREN’T THEY A MEMBER IN A MULTI-NATIONAL ECONOMIC UNION OF SOME SORT?

Why yes, they are, fantastic question!

However, that union exists between 19 different countries with 19 different sets of laws and sets of fiscal policy and national income profiles.  That’s where the rubber hits the road.  Greece has largely said through this that they want an infusion of capital (give us money!) with no strings attached.  Other countries with the ability to transfer this capital on short notice (*cough, cough*, *Germany*) have balked at bailing out Greece unless the loans are tied to fiscal reform in Greece.  In other words, Germany is saying something to this effect:  “Why should we pay your credit card bill when we know how to balance our checkbook and you don’t?”

So far, Greece hasn’t come up with any sort of a good answer although they did bring up the fact that they once were invaded and ruled by Germany and that they didn’t want to do that again… yes, they compared Chancellor Angela Merkel and the rest of Germany to Hitler and the Nazis.

A few years ago, Greece elected a number of officials that saw that they would have to seriously reform their spending habits and their tax laws in order to remain solvent as a country… and their measures, which might have turned around the Greek economy over time, were so popular that they were booted out of office in favor of a group of officials that seem to be flipping the bird to the rest of the Eurozone while asking for a blank check at the same time.

All of this posturing left Greece and the rest of the Eurozone with two options; bailout or (<sigh> I can’t avoid it> #Grexit.  Either some deal would be struck or Greece would have left/been forced out of the Eurozone and would have had to start printing their own currency.  Given the possible ramifications if Greece had indeed left the Eurozone, it’s likely for the very, very best that a deal was struck (even as tentative as it is right now).

WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THEY LEFT?

This is entirely supposition but my guess is without an infusion of capital from other countries, Greece would have gone into a depression that would have lasted more than a decade.  The first thing they would likely have done is defaulted on their loans, attempting to wipe their debt off the books.  That means that somewhere between 300 million and 400 million Euros that were owed to other countries and organizations would have evaporated.  Not a great first step when it comes to your newfound economic independence.

Greece would have started printing their own currency but how can creditors take their currency seriously when they have shown little political will to build a viable economy?  Interest rates on Greek debt would have skyrocketed; it would likely be nearly impossible for Greece to borrow any money until they can prove that they can balance their checkbook.  On top of that, their population base would flee to greener pastures (as has already happened to some of their educational elite over the past few years) and there would be nobody left to help build that economy.  Couldn’t they just print more money?  Go Google “hyperinflation” and then get back to me.

This is definitely the worst case scenario but I find it thoroughly plausible and apparently, Prime Minister Tsipras thought so as well given that he agreed to draconian terms to get this deal done with the Eurozone.  The single greatest cause for concern moving forward is that the Greek people vote the government out of office in favor of a further left-wing party that essentially reneges on this deal and puts them back on the brink.  If they go through, these austerity measures will be painful for Greece but I have a hard time feeling too sorry for them considering how long this has been looming.  Before you accuse me of being an elitist American snob, I will say the exact same thing if someday, we are being given unfavorable terms by our creditors.  Right now it may be farfetched but it’s not too farfetched to completely dismiss the possibility.

IF GREECE IS SUCH AN ECONOMIC DRAG, WHY DOES THE EUROZONE WANT THEM TO STAY?

There are two main reasons for keeping them in the fold and (more or less) forcing them to accept these sorts of terms.  First of all, if Greece leaves the Eurozone and defaults on their loans, the odds are good that the Eurozone will get back pennies on the dollar for the money that is owed to them.  Secondly, there was some speculation that there was some uneasiness within the Eurozone about Greece breaking away and doing well, free from the crippling burden of being in debt past your eyeballs to your neighbors.

Why should that matter?  Because the situation in other countries, specifically Ireland, Portugal, and Italy, aren’t that much better than it is in Greece right now.  If Greece broke away and was somewhat viable, it might encourage those countries to hold out for better terms from Berlin or they might also try going out on their own.  Personally, I don’t think this likelihood was very high but in holding their ground, Germany and Greece’s other creditors have sent a loud and clear message across the Eurozone; shape up or else… you need us more than we need you.

WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS?

Phenomenally, it sounds like the bailout package will help Greece get by and pay their bills for the next three years which means that they have that long to seriously overhaul their entire economy or face this exact same situation (though probably worse) in a few years.  Greece came out of this the biggest loser by far simply because as I understand it, there was no debt relief in this deal.  They are not getting off easily by any stretch of the imagination.

The wildcard in all this is the Greek people.  Twelve day ago, they collectively flipped the bird at the rest of the Eurozone by voting down austerity measures as part of a bailout plan (actually, only 61% of Greeks flipped the bird… 39% voted for the measures).  I’m assuming they thought that confronted with that overwhelming display of solidarity, their creditors were going to fall over and give up the fight and forgive the debt (or at least give them the bailout with no strings attached).  To say they overplayed their hand is a gross understatement.  Germany and the other creditors moved the other way, further away from the compromise that had been on the table, realizing correctly that they had the (infinitely) stronger negotiating position.

How are the people of Greece going to react?  Are they going to realize their mistake and accept this bitter pill?  Are they going to burn Tsipras in effigy and throw the government out in favor of one that will ignore this deal?

The most exciting part of this saga for me is that these are the types of situations that economists can’t cook up in a lab to study (apparently it would be “unethical” or something).  What would happen if Greece split off?  Would their economy truly reach rock bottom or would another country pounce on their desperation and more or less annex the country (I’m looking at you, Putin)?  How many more times can Merkel be compared to the Nazi Party before all is said and done?

These are difficult questions to answer in normal, everyday life but this situation allows the possibility of finally getting answers.

PREDICTIONS?

One of two things will happen, in my opinion.  Either this will end very anti-climactically and Greece will agree to the austerity measures and the Eurozone will stay together (boring… good odds) or the Greek government will become the former Greek government and Greece will truly crash in a way that makes the past few years look like a cakewalk.

My bet is the former…

An Ode to the King

Before I get into a statistical analysis of the performance that LeBron James is putting forth in the 2015 NBA Finals, I’d like to say a few words about a young woman who believed that because she was able to spend a ton of money to get (essentially) courtside seats, she should be able to verbally abuse another human being.  I don’t care that the “other human being” in this scenario was a man who made millions of dollars this year playing basketball.  I don’t care that he is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.  Nobody deserves to be treated that way and have verbal abuse flung at them.

On behalf of NBA fans everywhere, I’d like to apologize to LeBron James for the classless actions of one Golden State fan.  I’m sure you know this but sometimes it needs to be repeated when one person loses every shred of their perspective and humanity and says things of that nature; she was not speaking for us all.

I’m not going to repeat what she said here but the video isn’t that hard to find on the internet and the comment she made is very clear.  Now, the burden shifts to the Golden State Warriors.  LeBron James did everything right, staring down the woman before walking back to the locker room.  He did not engage her verbally or physically.  He walked away from the confrontation and despite what the primitive side of your brain might be telling you right now with regards to his actions, he absolutely did the right thing.  Now it’s up to the Warriors.  This fan was wearing a Warriors T-shirt and like it or not, she was representing your fandom to the entire country.  If the Warriors are a classy organization, they will ban that woman from ever setting foot in their arena ever again.  If they are a really classy organization, they will apologize to LeBron James on her behalf.

THE GAMES

But let’s not let one incredibly stupid comment sour our enjoyment of what has been a fantastic series thus far.  Last year gave us a show of just how beautiful basketball can be when executed to perfection, brought to us by the San Antonio Spurs.  This year, after Kyrie Irving went down with an injured kneecap, the Cavaliers decided there was only one way they had a chance in this series.  They had to channel their inner Bad Boys and take basketball back to the ‘80’s.  On defense, they had to bump and grind and throw a monkey wrench into the well-oiled machine that is the Warriors offense.  Thus far, it has been working very well.

On offense, their philosophy has been ever simpler; give the ball to the best player in the world and let him do his thing.  The Cavaliers have decided that they are going to win or lose on the playmaking abilities of a single player and thus far, it’s working.

THE HATERS

It always surprises me how easy it is for haters to find something to hate on and especially when it comes to arguably the most physically gifted basketball player ever to step on the hardwood.  Some of the criticism is warranted but as time goes by and he checks accomplishment after accomplishment off his career checklist, the whimpers of the haters get more and more pathetic.

While this series has been no exception, I’ll let a legend express his thoughts on LeBron’s series thus far, which happen to coincide with mine…

Even before finding this tweet from Magic, I had already begun to wonder if we were seeing one of the greatest Finals performances of all time.  Seriously, the guy is thus far averaging 41 points, 12 rebounds, and 8.3 assists per game.  Frankly, I don’t care that he’s only shooting 40.2% from the floor and if you were watching the games, you wouldn’t care either.

He’s taking a lot of shots that if Irving and Love were in the lineup would be considered bad shots.  He’s taking some shots that are bad shots even with the cast of characters around him but consider this… what better option do the Cavs have on offense right now?  JR Smith has been streaky, Dellavedova’s jumper has been somewhere between functional and bad (despite his 20 points in game 2, he’s shooting 37% from the floor and 25% from 3 point range), and James Jones cannot create his own shot.  In fact, only two Cavaliers are shooting better than LeBron’s 40.2%... Kyrie Irving (45.5%) and Timofey Mozgov (54.2%... and a good portion of that percentage has been due to the attention that LeBron has taken away from the paint).

There, I’ve done it.  I didn’t want to try to defend him from the haters and alas, that’s what I just did.  The thing that a lot of people are forgetting is that this was an incredibly good defensive team (the Warriors) this year.  Draymond Green was the runner up for Defensive Player of the Year.  Andre Iguodala has twice been a member of the NBA All-Defensive team (once on the 2^nd team and once on the 1^st).  Andrew Bogut isn’t the typical center that likes to shoot jumpers and stay away from the rim; he’s a true seven footer who – partially due to several injuries in his past – lives to disrupt shots on the defensive end.  And most importantly of all, the Warriors know that there is only one offensive threat on the other team.

THE NUMBERS

How should we measure the greatness of an individual in the NBA Finals?  That is a very good question.  Raw totals are not the best way to go because as flashy as they can be (and LeBron’s line this year is a perfect example), they are without context and that is key when it comes to comparing him to Mikan and Chamberlain and Bird and Magic and… Jordan.

It then occurred to me that not only is LeBron’s performance amazing, it’s doubly so considering that offensively, the Cavs don’t have another leg to stand on.  Therefore, I had to find a way to account for the load that he has had to carry through these Finals.

I decided to measure it two different ways and then rank all the players from the 1955 Finals to today (before 1955, the data gets a little spotty).  First, I measured the percentage of a team’s points, rebounds, and assists that a player accrued, totaled it, and ranked the players.  Then I took each of those percentages and assigned them all a percentile rank and totaled them and ranked them again.  I decided to only look at those three metrics for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s available (blocks and steals data wasn’t available until the 1974 Finals).  Secondly, it requires less normalization.

This is what the total field goal percentage in the NBA Finals has done over the past 61 years.  Yes, there are plenty of outliers and yes, the r-squared of that trendline isn’t very high but it’s high enough to say that there is a correlation between the year the series took place and how well the players shot the ball.  Had I used something like field goal percentage in my analysis, I would have had to normalize for the era and that’s without even considering the introduction of the three point line.

It is interesting to note from that graph that the 2014 and 2015 Finals are, so far, wild outliers on opposite ends of the trendline… food for thought.

Anyway, back to the numbers!  LeBron James is averaging 41, 12, and 8.3 in the Finals.  Only three players have ever averaged better than 40 points per game over an entire series; Elgin Baylor in 1962 (284 points in 7 games), Rick Barry in 1967 (245 points in six games), and Michael Jordan in 1993 (246 points in six games).  Of those three, only Baylor rebounded more and nobody assisted more than James.

However, the scoring averages of those four teams were: 113.6 for the 1962 Lakers (Baylor), 117.8 for the 1967 Warriors (Barry), 106.7 for the 1993 Bulls (Jordan), and thus far, 97.0 for this year’s Cavaliers.  LeBron has scored 42.3% of the Cavaliers’ points in these finals, several percentage points ahead of second place (Jordan in 1993 at 38.4%).

James has also grabbed 25.2% of the Cavaliers total rebounds and while that is not in the upper echelon like his scoring numbers, it’s still the 81^st best rank in Finals history… out of 1,357 individual player series.  Lastly, James has taken on the role of playmaker in addition to scoring and has accumulated 52.1% of his team’s assists, the third highest mark in Finals history, behind Magic Johnson in 1988 (54.8%) and Magic Johnson in 1981 (64.6%).

What have been the best Finals performance in these three statistical categories?

After looking through these numbers, my analysis is skewed towards a point guard that always handled the ball for his team.  However, to dismiss Magic’s performances because of that is to miss the fact that his lines were as follows:

1987: 26.2-8.0-13.0

1988: 21.1-5.7-13.0

1991: 18.6-8.0-12.4

Here’s the thing; if you add LeBron James 41.0-12.0-8.3 into the above tables, he nestles in at the top by quite a wide margin.

Whether you like it or not, LeBron James is one of the greatest players to play the game and he is having one of the best Finals ever.  Without him, the Warriors would sweep the Cavs and win each game easily.  Instead, the Warriors face a must-win game four on the road to take back home-court advantage.  If they don’t, they face a win-or-go-home game at home where they’ve already lost in this series just to go on the road again in a do-or-die game 6 where you know the Cavs will come out gunning to avoid a game 7 on the road.

The Warriors are used to playing a free-flowing, open style of ball that few teams can hang with, let alone beat.  The Cavaliers are taking it away from them on defense and playing isolation ball on offense, negating the Warriors athleticism and versatility on defense.  And all of it centers on one player, perhaps the only player in league history that could make this ugly-ball strategy work.

My prediction for game 4: Golden State makes more flashy buckets, Cleveland does the unheralded dirty work and takes a 3-1 series lead.

THE LONG, COLD SUMMER

ITCHING FOR A COMPETITION TO WATCH…

You see, there’s a slight problem with my relatively newfound love of watching top level weightlifting competitions… there isn’t a regular season comprised of 162 game or 82 or even 16.  In the calendar year in which we are nearing the midway point, there will be 2,430 Major League Baseball games and that’s not including the best baseball of all; the playoffs.  There will also be 256 regular season and 11 playoff NFL games (random sidenote; I am incredibly excited to watch LeBron James and – I gather there are other living breathing members of the Cavaliers – take on the Warriors).

Depending on your definition of “top level”, there will be somewhere between 7 and 38 weightlifting events this year.  Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to the types of events they like to watch.  Personally, I don’t really care how much a fifteen year-old can lift.  Yes, it’s amazing and yes, many of them can outlift me…  I’m sorry, I don’t really care.  I like watching the senior level lifters and more specifically, I like watching the higher weight classes.  That’s most of where the range above comes from; there are 38 events on the IWF’s calendar for 2015 but of those, I’d say 7 are higher level… think continental championships (European Championships, Asian Games, Pan-American Games and do on and so forth).  Of those, there are two that really, really matter this year.

From September 21^st to 23^rd in Fuzhou, China, the IWF will be hosting a Grand Prix which doubles as a qualifying event for the 2016 Olympics in Rio.  This will be an intriguing event given the fact that only ten (out of 15) weight classes will be represented, with no female 75 or 75+ kg lifters and no male 94, 105, or 105+ kg lifters being invited.  However, given that it is a qualifying event for the Olympics, the competition could be truly fierce.

Secondly, from November 20^th through 29^th, the World Championships will be occurring in Houston.  I have talked about the potential for truly epic competitions in the men’s 105 kg and 105+ kg weight classes previously so I won’t rehash those thoughts here.  It’s also possible that 2012 gold medalist Lulu Zhou of China will compete this year in the World Championships, meaning that Tatiana Kashirina might have some competition this year.  All of that will help compensate for the fact that Dmitry Klokov announced his retirement at the end of May in the traditional way.

All of that is to say that after the high point of the World Championships last November, it’s been more than a little difficult to come down from it.  I’m not saying that I want a top level competition with the likes of Ilya Ilyin, Ruslan Albegov, Aleksei Lovchev, and Tatiana Kashirina every day… but would every week really be so much of a burden?

Yes, yes, I know it would… However, there’s still been some good lifting with some good names a tier below those mentioned above.

Winning Snatches from the European Championships (women)

Winning Clean & Jerks from the European Championships (women)

Winning Snatches from the European Championships (men)

Winning Clean & Jerks from the Europeans Championships (men)

...and before I go any further, I have to say that there's something oddly satisfying about listening to weightlifting commentators speaking Russian (or what I'd assume is Russian)...

OUTLAW BARBELL PROGRAM

So how have I been keeping busy between competitions of my own?  Well, lifting heavy things and then putting them back down (it’s kinda what I do).

My coach recently found a program for me that comes from theoutlawway.com and after three days, I’ve decided that I’m going to love and hate this program and I’ve also decided that I am going to talk about it here.  I’ll probably include some video of me lifting from time to time because, frankly, it’s kinda fun.

This program, so far, is very heavy in volume compared to the types of programs I’ve done before and while it’s going to be difficult, I’m so far very excited about it.  For instance, today’s program looked like this:

- Snatch from the knee

a.       1 set of 6 @ 50% (of your one rep maximum)

b.      1x6 @ 55%

c.       1x6 @ 60%

d.      2x6 @ 65%

      - Jerk balance (one of the odder movements I’ve ever done but once I got the hang of it, I did feel like it was really hammering home the proper positioning).

a.       1x6 @ 50%

b.      1x6 @ 55%

c.       1x6 @ 60%

d.      2x6 @ 65%

          - Clean grip shrugs from the power position

a.       1x6 @ 50%

b.      1x6 @ 55%

c.       1x6 @ 60%

d.      2x6 @ 65%

           - Back Squat

a.       1x6 @ 50%

b.      1x6 @ 55%

c.       1x6 @ 60%

d.      2x6 @ 65%

That was day one and I can tell you that day two and three were similar in difficulty and identical in number of reps.  However, for the relative level of difficulty, I think this is going to be a very good program based on what I’ve seen so far (the first several weeks of this program have been posted and it’s supposed to continue until the national championships in August).

It focuses greatly on what I would refer to as “partial” lifts to emphasize proper positioning throughout the snatch and the clean and jerk, something that I would say I’m good at but could be much, much better.  What’s even better, there’s still some good old fashioned squatting thrown into the program as well and considering how long it’s been since I’ve squatted, this felt pretty good.

That’s all for today but I’ll be back periodically with more about this program.  It’s a long program (16 weeks) but if the timing is like last year, it’ll be perfectly timed to prep me for a competition of my own this fall.

The NBA Finals start tonight and while I’m sure many of you couldn’t care less, I’m looking forward to watching all of the games.  To be completely honest, I’d be happy with either team winning but right now, I just can’t bring myself to bet against the Warriors and Curry.

...still 169 days until the World Championships start...

World Championship and Olympic Weightlifting - 1998-2014

From 1998 through this past November, there have been four Olympic weightlifting competitions and 13 World Weightlifting Championship competitions.  Over that time frame, 1,684 men from 126 countries have attempted to hoist at much weight as possible over their heads.  I recently compiled this data set and decided to take it out for a spin and see what it could tell me.

                I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do with this data set but the one thing that I was very interested in was the relative level of competition amongst the weight classes and also amongst the individual meets.  For instance, at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Iranian Hossein Reza Zadeh broke the world record for the superheavyweight division with a total of 472.5 kg.  While one might expect the margin of victory to be large given that he broke the world record for the total, it was actually the second most competitive meet amongst the superheavies.

                The top five finishers that year completed five of the top 14 totals lifted in the past seventeen years.  For some perspective, there have been 451 individual lifters in the 105+ weight class so in one meet the top five lifters were in the top 3%.  The fifth place finisher (Korean Tae-Hyun Kim) lifted 460 kg, a total that would have won him the London Olympics in 2012 and seven different world championships.

HOW WOULD ONE MEASURE COMPETITIVENESS?

                Ah, a fantastic question.  The easiest way to measure this would be a simple margin of victory between the winner and the second place finisher.  However, this could give some false positives if there are two very good lifters in one class that are head and shoulders above the rest of the field.  The easy answer is to expand the field from two lifters to five so that’s exactly what I did.  I looked at the winner’s margin over the second, third, fourth, and fifth place finishers and added it together.  In the 2000 Olympics in the 105+ weight class, that would look like this:

                (472.5 – 467.5) + (472.5 – 462.5) + (472.5 – 460) + (472.5 – 460) = 40

                However, there is another problem with that.  Weights lifted are not created equal.  It’s far more impressive for Halil Mutlu to win by 20 kg in the 56 kg class than it is for Reza Zadeh to win by 20 kg in the 105+ weight class.  Then, my way forward was clear; I’d simply normalize the sum of the margins above by dividing it by the winning weight.  For Reza Zadeh in the Sydney Olympics, his score would be:

                40 / 472.5 = 0.085

                One way to think about this number is Reza Zadeh bested the next four competitors by a combined 8.5%.  Definitely not a perfect metric but when we’re looking at how competitive weight classes are, it’s a good start.

HOW COMPETITIVE ARE THE WEIGHT CLASSES OVERALL?

                Before looking at individual meets, I decided to look at the weight classes as a whole.  To calculate these values, I took the average of all of the first through fifth place finishers in each class at each meet over the past seventeen years and then subjected them to the analysis that I listed above.

                This is what those results look like.  The first five columns are the average results of lifters who finished in those positions and the next four columns are how far behind the winner they finished.  They, second from the right is the sum of these margins and the last column is their normalized score and in this case, the smaller that score, the more competitive the weight class has been.

                From this look, there is a fairly large divide between two groups of weight classes.  The 56, 62, 69, and 105+ kg classes have relatively large spreads, especially compared to the 77, 85, 94, and 105 kg classes.

                What are some possible reasons for this disparity?  I have a theory, and it comes to the average size of an adult male…

STATISTICAL TRAIN OF LOGIC

                Let us assume that one out of every ten million adult men is a world class Olympic weightlifter.  Let us also assume that the weights of men follow a true bell curve with an average weight of 90 kg and a standard deviation of 10 kg.

                By this logic, 68.26% of the population (or 1.365 billion men) are between 80 and 100 kg in body weight.  Given the assumptions made previously, there are 136 world class weightlifters in that weight range and there are only two weight classes (three if you include the 105 kg class).  Meanwhile, the 56 kg class is so far from the mean that in our crude model, there are only 0.13% of men that weigh less than 50 kg and 2.27% that weigh less than 60 kg.  Those percentages translate to 0.26 and 4.28 world class lifters below those weights.

                My theory is that as you get closer and closer to average in terms of stature (height and weight to start with) then the more competitive the meets become because there is a larger pool from which to draw the athletes.  The first look at the numbers bears this out.

THE SUPER-HEAVIES

                The one class that seems to be a bit incongruous with the others is the 105+ kg class.  It seems that, according to the logic introduced a short time ago, the superheavyweight class is not far enough from the mean (231 pounds) to be that much of an outlier.  However, the average weight of the 202 men that have competed in the 105+ category – which includes each of the 451 individual entries; each of the five times Andrei Chemerkin competed goes into this average – is 134.9 kg (298 pounds).  This is much more of an outlier than the lower limit for the weight class.  It’s the one class where weight doesn’t really matter.  I understand that body weight breaks ties (lower body weight wins ties) but there is no upper limit that the lifters have to be cognizant of; they can weigh as much as they want.

INDIVIDUAL MEETS

                Given all that I’ve talked about thus far, it should surprise nobody that of the 10 most competitive individual meets, 9 of them came from the 77 kg (1), 85 kg (4), 94 kg (3), and 105 kg (1) weight classes.  It also should be no surprise that 9 of the 10 least competitive meets occurred in the 56 kg (3), 62 kg (2), 69 kg (2), and 105+ kg (2) category.

                The most prominent name on this list is that of Turkish lifter Halil Mutlu, who has been one of the best weightlifters of the past two decades (more on that later).  His three meets that appear in the top ten for least competitive were won by an average of 19.2 kg over second place.  In fact, Mutlu’s six World Championship or Olympic appearance in this data set were won by an average of 13.3 kg.  By contrast, Ilya Ilyin (another of the best lifters of the past two decades) won his six titles by an average of 2.2 kg and three of those six were ties that were broken by body weight.

                There’s a reason by Ilyin’s name appears three times on the list of most competitive meets.  He has won world championships in three different weight classes but they are the central three classes; 85 kg, 94 kg, and most recently, 105 kg.

                The other noteworthy bit that you can see in this table is there have been multiple three-way ties for first place (there have been a total of 3 three-way ties).  There have been 14 other instances of a two-way tie for first place over the years.  On average, one of the 8 weight classes will have a championship decided by body weight every year.

WHO IS THE BEST OF THE BEST?

                There have been 12 different lifters that have won at least three championships between 1998 and 2014.  Before going any further, it is worth mentioning that many of the best lifters in history did their work long before this time period (such as Russian Vasily Alexeyev) or they began their careers before this time period and continued their run after 1998 (such as Turk Halil Mutlu or Greek Pyrros Dimas).  However, all I can do is look at the sample set that’s put in front of me.

                Despite those difficulties, this question isn’t actually as difficult as I may have portrayed.  Of the aforementioned 12 men who have won three championships, there are three that have won double that and amongst those three, it’s not hard to extrapolate to who will end up being the best.

                Halil Mutlu won four world championships and two Olympic gold medals between 1998 and 2004.  In addition to these medals, he won both the snatch and the clean & jerk gold medals at all four world championships (at the world championships, three medals are awarded for snatch, clean & jerk, and total… at the Olympics, only a single medal is awarded for the highest total) for a total of 14 gold medals at the international level.

                Iranian Hossein Reza Zadeh started his career slightly later than Mutlu which means that he has more in our sample set.  Reza Zadeh took the bronze at the 1999 world championships and then the gold medal at the 2000 Olympics.  After not competing in 2001, he won five straight titles (four world championships and another Olympic gold medal) from 2002 to 2006.

                Kazak Ilya Ilyin won his first world championship in the 85 kg class at the age of 17.  He then won two world championships (2006 and 2011) and two Olympic gold medals (2008 and 2012) in the 94 kg class and lastly, won the world championship last year in the 105 kg class.  The biggest difference between these three men is Mutlu won his sixth championship at 31 years old and Reza Zadeh at 28 before suddenly retiring.  Ilyin won his sixth at just 26 years old and likely has several more years of top level competition… especially since he’s still breaking world records.

WHAT COUNTRY IS THE BEST IN THE WORLD?

                This is a question that is somewhat obvious and surprising at the same time.  China has entered 124 lifters in the international competitions while Russia has entered 122.  China has had 74 of those lifters reach the podium and 106 make it into the top ten.  Russia has had 56 top 3’s and 102 top 10’s over the same time span.  The only country that has more wins that Russia is Iran with 15.

                Perusing this list of countries (and going slightly beyond the top ten) a pattern began to emerge.  On this list of podium finishes, Russia finished second and Belarus 9^th.  Just outside the top ten in 11^th and 12^th were Kazakhstan and Armenia and then in 18^th and 19^th place were Azerbaijan and Latvia.  It just so happens that those are all former Soviet states.  The next question became obvious… what would the above list look like if the former Soviet states were re-combined?

                First of all, this is what the 15 former Soviet states have done in world class weightlifting over the past seventeen years.  Needless to say, a very impressive showing from countries other than Russia.  Put them back together, and this is how the rankings change.

                First and foremost, the Soviets would not have been able to enter 912 lifters if they were still one country.  In such competitions, there are limits to how many athletes can go but the point of this exercise was simply to show, culturally speaking, where weightlifting is most popular around the world.  On average, 53.6 lifters have come to the world championships or to the Olympics from former Soviet states each year.  Their 375 top ten finishes are more than triple China’s 106.

                Put all of that together and 48.5% of the world champions, 50.7% of the silver medalists, and 41.9% of the bronze medalists have come from either China or a former Soviet state.