The event, which saw 585 athletes from 94 countries compete at the George R. Brown Convention Center from November 19 to 28, was rewarded for what SportsTravel Magazine described as "its superior organisation and spectator attendance, for creating superior experience for competitors and spectators".

The award was presented to Janis Burke, chief executive of the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority, and Phil Andrews, chief executive of USA Weightlifting, at an awards gala at the TEAMS ’16 conference in Atlantic City in New Jersey.

"It is such an honour to win this award," said Burke.

"Houston welcomed the world and I am so proud that our community was recognised for its hospitality."

Andrews added: "Organising and hosting an event of this magnitude is never easy.

"We were lucky to have great partners at the International Weightlifting Federation and the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority who were all instrumental in making this event such a success."

The award also recognised Houston for enhancing an already star-studded sports event.

"This award shows something that we all know about Houston," said Burke.

"It’s a great place to live, visit and to hold major sporting events."

Previous winners of the award include the US Figure Skating Championships, the Boston Marathon and the Ryder Cup.

The event in Houston was somewhat overshadowed however by the suspension of 17 athletes for positive drug tests less than a month after its conclusion.

Among them was Russia’s Alexey Lovchev, who had made a winning lift of 211 kilograms in the over 105kg snatch event, before going on to claim the clean and jerk title with 264kg.

This eclipsed the previous world record mark of 263kg set by Iran’s Hossein Reza Zadeh at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

His two best lifts had also given him enough to surpass another world record held by Reza Zadeh, who amassed 472kg at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, as he sealed the total title with a combined effort of 475kg.

In July, Lovchev’s appeal against a four-year ban after testing positive for growth hormone enhancer ipamorelin was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

CAS' verdict confirmed the cancellation of his results at the World Championships. 

Weightlifting has proved to be a problem sport when it comes to doping with a total of 47 weightlifters having been named by the IWF as having failed drugs test when their samples given during Beijing 2008 or London 2012 were re-analysed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The IWF Executive Board had previously ruled that countries which produce three or more anti-doping rule violations in the combined re-analysis of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics face being banned.

Decisions still have to be made, however, because the IOC are yet to officially confirm most of these cases.

Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine are all facing the prospect of a ban, should all the positive cases involving their lifters be confirmed.