[jacques_chester]

I'm actually having trouble nailing down a source for where I got the 200k number. It was for total registered lifters at all levels, including youth, juniors, seniors and masters. When a sport is popular in a country, it's played at all ages.

Meanwhile the USA had, until Crossfit, about 3,000 lifters. Not a very big pool to draw from.

You correctly point out that state funding for Olympic sports collapsed some time back and that this removed the quasi-professional pathway.

For a similar reason, few athletes in the anglosphere who is naturally strong and power will go into weightlifting. They're playing gridiron or rugby. Those sports are popular and have lucrative professional leagues.

[stefk0]

Have you considered the possibility that the Bulgarian success was at least partially based on doping ?

I don't know much about weight-lifting, but I recall many scandals in the past years about disqualified Bulgarian athletes for doping.

(I am Bulgarian.)

[jacques_chester]

I usually leave doping out of the discussion because it's not a point of distinction. Most dominant countries have doping programs. It just seems as though the Bulgarians are particularly inept at planning their steroid cycles to avoid detection at international meetings. Or possibly Ivan Abadjiev doesn't care how he loses lifters -- whether through quitting, injury or doping charges.