Hosting its first-ever combined World Championships having last staged the men’s event in Los Angeles in 1984 and the women’s version in Daytona Beach three years later, the pressure was on the United States to deliver. 

And while the weightlifting world could sit around forever and day deliberating over whether USA Weightlifting achieved its goal in terms of the event as a spectacle, one thing for sure is that this year’s edition will long be remembered as the one when the IWF really did get tough on doping.

There won’t have been many people accusing the IWF of being too lenient when it banned 11 Bulgarian weightlifters from competing at its showpiece event this year after testing positive for the banned anabolic steroid stanozolol during a training camp for the European Championships in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

Upheld by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in August, the punishment represented a strong stance from the IWF.

But on the eve of the World Championships, a strong stance became much more than that as it was announced that the world governing body’s Executive Board had banned Bulgaria from competing in weightlifting at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

As well as setting a no-nonsense precedent within weightlifting, the severity of the sanction could also provide an example for other sports to follow.

It comes at a time when the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has deemed it sufficient to impose a suspension on the All-Russia Athletics Federation (ARAF) amid allegations of widespread and "state-supported" doping in Russia, thus leaving the door open for its athletes to compete at Rio 2016. 

Unlike the ARAF, there’s no time for the Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation (BWF) to show signs of reform. The door has been slammed shut on their Olympic aspirations. Firmly.

And in truth, it’s not as though it's not been coming. In 2009, the BWF was temporarily stripped of its licence due to doping among weightlifters, a year after it had withdrawn its team before the start of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games following failed tests for 11 of its members.

Bulgaria's team was also sent home in shame from the Sydney 2000 Games, where it was stripped of three gold medals.

IWF rules state that any country which produces nine or more positive doping cases during an Olympic qualification period - which in the case of Rio 2016 runs from June of last year to June of next year - will be banned from competing at the Games. 

And speaking to insidethegames ahead of the final evening’s action at the 2015 World Weightlifting Championships, IWF President Tamás Aján was adamant that every National Federation, including the BWF, had given their seal of approval to the ruling.

"I tell you, all the countries agreed with this decision," he said.

"All the countries agreed.

"The Bulgarians tried to explain and stood in front of the [IWF] Hearing Commission before going to the CAS - the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

"At all levels, the decision of the International Federation was approved and therefore this is why I think we are absolutely right when we take this action and we adopt the formal decision that they cannot participate at the Games."

Koji Murofushi, the Athens 2004 Olympic gold medal-winning hammer thrower, gave his backing to the decision saying the right sanction was imposed. 

"When I hear these stories, I feel very sad," the Japanese told insidethegames.

"I feel angry about it for clean athletes.

"I very much respect the move of the International Weightlifting Federation.

"It must be very painful but they’re trying to protect the clean athletes."

So Bulgaria won’t be competing in weightlifting at Rio 2016, but as they say, the show must go on.

One man who will have a major impact on that is Pedro Meloni, the Rio 2016 weightlifting and powerlifting sport manager, who was in Houston throughout the World Championships. 

Meloni was particularly complimentary of the crowd interaction between sessions and also the presentation of the equipment, saying it’s good to see the IWF is "thinking outside of the box".

"The World Championships are the pinnacle of any sport and the Olympic Games are the pinnacle of the sport," he added.

"So the idea is to take these things from the World Championships, then maybe add a Brazilian flavour and putting it into the Games."

Although he’s looking to bring new dimensions to the presentation, Meloni is keen to take acknowledge the tradition of weightlifting, which has been contested at all but three of the Summer Olympic Games since their inception in 1896.

The aforementioned Massik believes USA Weightlifting has set a strong example in this regard.

"We have demonstrated to the weightlifting community throughout the world that we can put on a great event," said Massik.

"We can present the sport in a way that is spectacular, visually appealing, fan appealing and we want to continue that progress for our own federation as a host to the International Weightlifting Federation, and share our experiences with every federation."

The action itself at the World Championships was exceptional at times with nine world records falling in as many days of competition.

But, despite such an impressive tally, the performance of the World Championships has to go to North Korea’s Jong Sim Rim in the women’s 75 kilogram category.

Having torn the labrum in her left hip with her third snatch attempt, Rim defied doctor’s advice to not only carry out her three remaining lifts, but also add silver medals in the clean and jerk and overall to her runners-up spot in the snatch.

Seeing her fellow overall medallists Yue Kang of China and Olga Zubova of Russia help her onto the podium to a standing ovation from the crowd at the George R. Brown Convention Center will go down as one of the most enduring memories of this year's World Championships. 

At a time when sport is so tainted by corruption and scandal, it served as a reminder that it still has an immeasurable power to inspire and bring nations together. 

If other International Sports Federations, such as the IAAF, take example from the IWF’s tough sanctions on the BWF, perhaps we won’t need reminding so often.