It’s been an epic week for young women in Dutch powerlifting with Betty Aborah (-63kg) and Tessa Ophoff (-76kg) both winning the Junior European Championship in their respective classes. We also saw Elise Idora claim victory in the -63kg subjuniors. Congratulations!!
It’s amazing to see young women absolutely crushing it on the platform at an elite level. But you can’t become elite unless you participate, which leads to me to my favourite visualisations yet.
First up, we can see participation of women in (IPF-affiliate) powerlifting absolutely exploding since 2010. In that year 18.4% of lifters in their first meet were women, which has increased to 30.9% in 2023.
For reasons not yet apparent in the data, this number has dropped at bit since 2017, where it peaked at 33.8%. I plan to uncover potential reasons for this in a later analysis. Overall though, the trend is positive and the gender gap is closing.
Next, I extend the chart we saw last week, and split the average annual growth rate by age groups into gender as well. In every age group, we see girls and women outpacing the boys and men.
The women aged 21-25 stand out, growing at an average pace of 13.3% per year over the last 10 years, compared to 7.2% for men in the same age group. This is followed by women aged 26-30 at 10.5%, and 61-70 at 10.1%. Yes you read that right, 61-70. Women, young and old, are flocking to the sport.
This makes me even more excited for the future of powerlifting, and the future of women, as we collectively start to see the benefits of living in a strong body.