The Royal Mint Museum interviewed Rob about his design’s inspiration. At the top centre is the 2012 Olympic logo. It features a simple outline of a weightlifter in the squat position, holding a barbell with weights. The Weightlifting 50p was designed by Rob Shakespeare, a police officer from Manchester and previous weightlifter. In the 2012 London Games, China ranked first in the standings with seven medals total, five were gold. Today’s Olympic Weightlifting event focuses on two exercises: the clean and jerk and the snatch. Originally, the event had ‘one-hand’ and ‘two-hand’ events, but after the 1928 Games, ‘one-hand’ events were removed from the program.
Weightlifting has been a competition throughout all of civilisation but became an Olympic sport in the first Olympic games in 1896. Weightlifting is the 27 th coin in the 29-coin series. In anticipation for the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games, the Royal Mint released a 50p coin series in 2011 featuring different Olympic and Paralympic sports.
