Is this a serious common modern belief? Weightlifting was exceedingly popular in my youth, which by millenial scale was ancient history but in actual real terms was in living memory.
The account name "oldmanjay" suggests to me that the "exceedingly popular in my youth" refers to the first "renaissance in the anglosphere".
That is, http://www.awf.com.au/history/HallOfFame.aspx says that the 1970s were "“the golden years” of the sport" in Australia, and there are many here who were youths in the 1970s.
So when you write "Almost nobody knew what weightlifting was", what population were you considering? If it's predominately those in their 20s ("millenial scale") then you should consider oldmanjay's comment as suggesting there's a bias error in your 'almost nobody.'
There's a clear drop in British English during the 1980s, which is what I would expect from your first/second renaissance description, but it doesn't exist in the US English chart. So another possibility is that oldmanjay comes from the US.
Under "Number of Lifters in the Top 10 Male Rankings by State" are 58 from Western Australia, and under "Number of Lifters in the Top 10 Female Rankings by State" are 39 from Western Australia. This sounds like there were easily more than three dozen registered weightlifters in WA. I didn't carefully check to see if there were duplicate names, but a spot examination shows few overlaps. And in any case, these are only the top 10 winners.
How do you know there were "perhaps three dozen registered weightlifters in Western Australia" when the limited evidence I can find suggests there were more than that?
> there are many here who were youths in the 1970s.
The 70s are definitely before my time.
Going on what I read from those who were adults in the 70s, it seems like the golden era for the anglosphere was the 50s and 60s. By the 1970s the Russians dominated the sport.
> This sounds like there were easily more than three dozen registered weightlifters in WA.
There's a capitation table. 77 registered lifters (~six dozen, I was off by 2x) in the whole of WA in 2007. In 2008 it fell to 68. I can't find more recent numbers, they seem to have stopped publishing the capitation table.
For what it's worth, I competed for five years, during which Crossfit exploded in popularity. They have been a massive shot in the arm for strength sports. It used to be that I'd say I was a weightlifter and people would ask me for tips on bicep curls. Now I have a chance that someone will ask me about my competition total.
Thanks for the explanation of the PDF. I've never heard of the term 'capitation table'.
That still leaves the possibility that there's a difference between US/Commonwealth practices, that is, that you use 'anglosphere' where perhaps 'Commonwealth' is a more appropriate term?
For another US data point, the gym I went to in ~2005 had a stronger emphasis on weight lifting. http://www.carlandsandras.com/ . It's "Under the direction of Carl Miller, former United States National, Olympic, and World Weightlifting Coach", and one of the men in the first salsa class I went to, back in around 2000, was an amateur weightlifter.
Which means that I, like oldmanjay, find it hard to accept that 'Almost nobody knew what weightlifting was' before 2007.
Well, yes. (I thought were were discussing possible sources of those differences, rather than leaving it with a "just", but I also recognize that at this point it's the sort of pointless research that easily distracts me.)
There was no reputation. Almost nobody knew what weightlifting was.