At next month’s American Open Championships in Orlando, USA Weightlifting will make history by becoming the first weightlifting federation ever to offer a Women’s 90kg weight category in an International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) sanctioned international competition.

The IWF formally adopted the new weight categories in October.

USA Weightlifting called upon David Meltzer and Les Simonton to help determine the American Record Standards for the new women’s 90kg weight category.

The Record Standards are:

Snatch 110kg Clean &

Jerk 142kg Total 251kg

Snatch 102kg Clean &

Jerk 132kg Total 232kg

The first American Records will be awarded when an athlete surpasses these standards.

Meltzer and Simonton evaluated historical data and used mathematical principals to reach the Senior Record Standards. The forecasting of each record standard was based on patterns of variation of performance versus bodyweight.

“We interpret the goal here, in effect, as ‘predicting’ where the very best U.S. performances will be in the 90kg category once things settle down in a year or two or three,” they wrote. “We want to set a record standard that is achievable, but only with a top-quality performance and one that is ‘equivalent’ to the current records in other bodyweight categories.”

The pair looked at American Records data along with key performances by American weightlifters over the last several years. Those performances include Marissa Klingseis’ 257kg Total at the 2016 Olympic Team Trials. They also looked at the lifts in the 75kg and +75kg categories at the 2014-2016 National Championships and the 2014 and 2015 American Open Championships.



Based on historic record data coupled with mathematical analysis, Meltzer and Simonton concluded the Senior American Record for the women’s 90kg category would be a 7kg increase in the record for Total compared to the 75kg category. In the Clean & Jerk, the increase in record would be 4kg. For Snatch the increase record total is 3kg compared to the 75kg category.

In respect to the Junior records, Meltzer and Simonton concluded their mathematical analysis would apply similarly. Therefore, for the Junior 90kg category, the records would increase like the senior records, 7kg increase in Total, 4kg increase in the Clean & Jerk and a 3kg increase in the Snatch.

USA Weightlifting expresses its thanks and gratitude to David Meltzer and Les Simonton who were instrumental in setting these Record Standards.

You can read Meltzer and Simonton’s analysis here