Rio Olympic Games weightlifting by the numbers. Competition begins on Saturday at Riocentro Pavilion 2.

1896 - Weightlifting was one of the sports at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 when the men's one-arm lift and the men's two-arm lift were being contested. In Rio de Janeiro, medals will be contested in 15 events, eight for men and seven for women.

40 - Norbert Schemansky (USA) was 40 years and 141 days old when he claimed bronze at the Tokyo 1964 Olympic Games in the men's +90kg event to be the oldest athlete to win a medal in weightlifting.

9 - The record for most medals won by one team at a single Olympic Games in weightlifting with the Unified Team achieving this result at the Barcelona 1992 Olympic Games and China taking nine medals at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

3 - Pyrros Dimas (Greece), Naim Suleymanoglu (Turkey), Akakios Kahiashvili (Greece) and Halil Mutlu (Turkey) are the only athletes to have won a record three gold medals in weightlifting.

2 - Teams have won one gold medal without claiming silver or bronze at the Olympic Games. Leif Jensen (Norway) won the men's 82.5kg event for Norway in the Munich 1972 Olympic Games and Soraya Jimenez(Mexico) won the women's 58kg for Mexico at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.