PREFACE
by Livio Toschi
 

"Being a historian means never relinquishing

It means attempting everything, demonstrating everything,

to fill the gaps of information"

LUCIEN FEBVRE

 

Several words have been said (and often have been repeated) on weightlifting from the 1800's to our days by dismissing the previous epochs with a few lines, despite their richness of references to "strong men" and their training equipment, from simple boulders to the increasingly more advanced alteres. For this reason, I deemed it necessary to go back to the roots of weightlifting examining the myths and the history with the help of art and literary works.

In 1977, the sport journalists Felice Palasciano wrote that weightlifting "must be considered modern since its origins date back to less than one century". Others, before and after him, agreed with him. I absolutely disagree.

Certainly, in the past it was difficult to measure one's strength and impossible to compete at a distance without our precision barbells. Despite this, since the beginning of our civilization, challenges have never missed. People threw the diskos and thesolos, they jumped with the alteres. They used the alteres even to strengthen their body similarly to our days.

Weightlifting is certainly an ancient sport which takes its roots (like in a paining by Gustave Moreau) in the enchanting halo of the myth from which the mighty figures of Atlas and Hercules, of gods and heroes, of giants and cyclops stand out. The myth of strenght is ageless and borderless.

[...]

 

 


 

 

page up

home page