Gottfried Schödl

One of the most respected and influential figures in the sport of weightlifting, Austria’s Gottfried Schödl was a founding father of the European Weightlifting Federation in 1969 and had a 28-year Presidency of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF). Schödl, known as “Mr. Weightlifting”, first became involved in Austrian weightlifting administration in 1950, and was at the IWF for eight years before he became president and led the sport through three decades of transformation.

When Schödl took charge of the sport, weightlifting was for men only, featured three lifts rather than two, and was dominated by Europeans. One of the first significant changes adopted by Schödl was removing the previous title, Fédération Halterophile Internationale, in favour of the International Weightlifting Federation. One of Schödl’s last acts as IWF President, an attempt to enforce a ban against the entire Bulgaria team during the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, was thwarted by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). A great historian and statistician, Schödl was also a renowned journalist and sports writer. He wrote and published hundreds of articles and several books on weightlifting including The Lost Past. A Story of the International Weightlifting Federation. He also edited the international federation’s journal for over 40 years.

Born in 1924 in Wien (Vienna), Schödl started in sport as a skater and then began weightlifting as a teenager at the local Meidlinger Club. He soon traded in his athletic career for a career in weightlifting sports administration. In his distinguished military service, Schödl rose to become commander of a tank company on the Eastern Front. Schödl was the President of the IWF from 1972 - 2000 and ran the international Olympic weightlifting competition at eight Olympic Games – in München (1972), Montréal (1976), Moskva (1980), Los Angeles (1984), Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000). In 1992, Schödl was an Olympic Order Recipient in silver.

At the age of 95 and during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, Schödl passed away from natural causes in his home city of Wien.