Matthew Curtain, the IWF’s technical delegate for Paris 2024, also announced proposed changes to athletes’ responsibilities for logging their whereabouts information, which they must do three months before every qualifying competition.

This tightens up anti-doping procedures and means that, because there are no long gaps between events, athletes must effectively provide their whereabouts information for the entire qualifying programme which ends on April 28, 2024.

The plans have been reviewed and approved by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Executive Board in Lausanne this week.

The first lift in qualifying will be made today when 12 days of competition begin at the 2022 IWF World Championships.

There will then be four continental championships and an IWF Grand Prix in Cuba during the first six months of next year, the 2023 IWF World Championships in September, the Oceania Championships at the Pacific Games in November, and another IWF Grand Prix in December.

Qualifying will continue in 2024 with all five continental championships in January and February, and then the final event, the IWF World Cup in Thailand in April.

The qualifying period ends three months before the Games begin in Paris on July 26 2024.

Weightlifting has lost more than half of its athlete quotas since the 2016 Olympic Games and will have 120 places in Paris.

Of the 12 athletes in each of 10 weight categories, five for men and five for women, 10 will earn their places from a ranking list compiled during qualifying.

Only the best single performance will count, but athletes are compelled to participate in at least five qualifying competitions.

The other 20 quota places will go to host nation athletes, four, universality, six, and continental representation, ten, by which method a continental federation without a place in the top 10 in the rankings may claim a place for its highest athlete outside the top 10.

To be eligible for Paris, all athletes must compete in the 2023 IWF World Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from September 2 to 17, and the 2024 IWF World Cup in Phuket, Thailand from April 2 to 11.

They must also participate in at least three of these five qualifying competitions:

2022 IWF World Championships (Bogotá, December 5-16), 2023 Continental Championships (Pan America in Bariloche, Argentina, March 25-April 2; Europe in Yerevan, Armenia, April 15-23; Asia in Jinju, South Korea, May 3-13; Africa in Tunis, Tunisia, May, dates to be confirmed; Oceania at Pacific Games in Honiara, Solomon Islands, November 20-24), 2023 IWF Grand Prix I (Havana, Cuba, June 2-12), 2023 IWF Grand Prix II (Doha, Qatar, early December, dates to be confirmed) and 2024 Continental Championships (all five dates to be confirmed, must be in January-February).

The weight categories for women are 49kg, 59kg, 71kg, 81kg and over-81kg, and for men they are 61kg, 73kg, 89kg, 102kg and over-102kg.

Any athlete who posts a total in these events in a non-Olympic weight category can count that total in the next highest Olympic category.

The IWF also announced that its World Youth Championships will be in Durres, Albania from March 25 to April 5, and the World Junior Championships in Guadalajara, Mexico from November 13 to 20.

There is a possibility of the Junior Championships being held outdoors in the main square in Guadalajara, although concerns raised by the IWF Athletes Commission must be overcome.