1. The technique requirements are exponentially higher, making it overall harder to learn and more impressive to watch and more rewarding when you succeed. Watching it in action looks cool as ****, whereas sq/dl/bp are fairly simple movements that are more mundane. Still very cool, imo, but lacks the grace and nuanced precise movement displayed during a snatch or cj. As an actual lifter, it is far more fun to actually execute the lifts and the rush of excitement and endorphins from completing a maximal snatch or clean and jerk makes sq/bp/dl look like playing with toy trains.

2. The $$$ is far higher; olympic sports have always been a way for countries to compete in dick measuring, which is exceptionally important to the ones who aren't doing so well in terms of living standards/human rights/economic freedom, but still important to non-loser countries. Successful athletes make a **** ton of dough doing it and countries pour a lot of money into developing really good athletes.

3. Along with point 2, the real genetic elite from non-western countries display their might here. This is not true of powerlifting; a larry wheels level gifted athlete is fairly common among WLers.

4. You are watching professionals who live their entire lives around it and have started from comparatively young ages, and with this level of professionalism, performance is much higher. Despite harsher drug testing, if you threw a belt on some fairly mediocre national level wlers in China/Iran/Russia and taught them to LBBS, they'd destroy a lot of the best powerlifters. Many of them can literally out hbbs the best lbbsers. I guess there are some "powerlifting professionals", but they are usually e-book/training program/coaching salesmen first and powerlifters second, in terms of money coming in.

Why it's worse:

1. Inaccessible. Most people around the globe literally will not be able to start weightlifting even as a self coached athlete. And let's not forget that a coach is much more necessary just because of the technicality.

2. The physiques ewwwww

3. As a viewer: uneven drug testing/drug testing at all. If it were a full free-for-all for everyone, it'd be awesome. Problem is if it wasn't an olympic sport, all that $$$ would vanish and with drug testing getting better and better every olympic cycle, I somehow doubt the IOC will change its mind about keeping things clean just to make one sport cooler and more watchable.


Arguably higher injury risk? but honestly I'm not sure

Films like Dennis and similar sentiments are pure cope on the part of the cultural puritans who can't stand the idea that women are as attracted to tacky caricatures of physical masculinity to any extent comparable (but admittedly less so) than men are to analogous caricatures of the female form (fake tits, bimbos, pornstars, strippers, Danielle Derek types and the like)