When Mirko Zanni made his final lift to claim bronze in the men's 67 kilograms on Sunday (July 25) he became Italy’s first weightlifting medallist since 1984.

Two days later Giorgia Bordignon, at the age of 34, went one better with a silver in the women’s 64kg.

Those two medals put weightlifting on the front pages of the Italian newspapers, and reduced the President of the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI) to tears.

There could be more to come when the programme resumes at the Tokyo International Forum on Saturday (July 31).

Antonino Pizzolato, from Sicily, goes for gold in the men's 81kg.

A medal of any colour will make Italy Europe's top nation in Tokyo.

Lyu Xiaojun, who was 37 on Tuesday (July 27), will be trying to win China’s fifth gold but he is not as strong a favourite as his team mates.

Pizzolato, 13 years younger, was only 1kg short of Lyu’s clean and jerk world record when he won his second continental title in April.

"We are optimistic," said Antonio Urso, President of the Italian Weightlifting Federation (FIPE) and, until his resignation last year, a long-standing Executive Board member of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).

Last year Pizzolato was asked in an online interview by Oleg Torokhtiy, the popular Ukrainian, whether he used the Soviet, Bulgarian or Chinese system in training.

Pizzolato said no to all three.

He and his ever-improving team mates "rely on the Italian system".

The "Italian system" has been going for eight years and its success, after so much hard work, is what brought tears to the eyes of the CONI President, Giovanni Malagò, when he spoke with Urso this week.

The key to this new way of training potential champions comes down to treating the athletes "like humans rather than machines", said Urso.

Meetings to discuss a new way forward were held before the London 2012 Olympic Games, one of them for three straight days.

Urso was aware that the sport was riddled with doping and corruption, and that things had to change eventually.

The early start in devising a way "to improve in a clean sport" has given Italy an advantage they hope to hold for years to come.

"We have done well in Tokyo and we have high hopes of Antonino Pizzolato but for Paris we will be even stronger.

"We have many good young lifters who are improving."

Among them is Davide Ruiu, the 20-year-old who was the highest-placed non-Asian athlete in the men’s 61kg in Tokyo, finishing sixth.

The Italians "invested a lot in research, in technology, and culture of coaches," said Urso, who was President of the European Weightlifting Federation for the maximum term of 12 years until this year.

The next objective was to work out "how can we improve the quality of life of the group" who are based at the Olympic Centre in Rome - athletes of all ages, head coach Sebastiano Corbu, four other coaches of which one is female, two psychologists, a doctor, two physios and a nutritionist.

"We invested in two psychologists, but their work was not on the athletes, it was on the coaches because they started to include management of human questions inside the group.

"When you are in control of human problems and human difficulties, you can manage training better and better.

"The key was to improve the capacity of coaches to manage the human resource, manage the talents."

For example when family problems trouble some of the younger lifters, when they become "a big weight in their life", the team will help them through, said Urso.

"This is a problem for training, and the life inside the group.

"The capacity of coaches is to manage this - it’s not simple, it might not be the task of the coach but we are training humans, not machines."

There is a focus, at the Olympic Centre, on the athletes' life after training.

Pizzolato has made good use of the psychologists and nutritionists, sticking to a rigid regime of training, eating and sleeping that suits him well.

"Psychological preparation has been a constant evolution," he said.

"Proper nutrition makes your training and recovery better."

Corbu, from Sardinia, was a lifter in the same weight class as Urso and has become "one of the best coaches in the world".

Another of the coaches is a strategy specialist who, said Urso, did a superb job with Bordignon.

"It was like Formula 1, a perfect strategy.

"It put under pressure the best lifter in snatch, and the best in clean and jerk, it was fantastic - both Giorgia [who made all six lifts] and the strategy."

The future looks good even before Pizzolato lifts.

"We can invest more now - it's easier to find sponsors, to get publicity because of our medals in Tokyo.

"This is a new era for weightlifting in Italy, and I hope Italy will be a leader of change.

"We are really open to giving our experience to other countries.

"Our method might not be ideal perhaps in Asia, in Africa, but it is correct for European culture.

"If other countries invest in this method they can have results.

"In a clean sport, anybody can win with good training, good culture, good professionalism - there are possibilities for all."