First up was the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Junior World Championships in Fiji which ended yesterday, and next is the British International Open which finishes here tonight. 

European champions Elena Toma of Romania, an easy winner with career-best numbers, and Dmytro Chumak of Ukraine, plus British hopefuls Zoe Smith, Sarah Davies and Emily Campbell are among those who will move up when performances from Coventry - a "bronze" event compared to the "gold" status of the IWF Juniors - are added.

Much to the delight of USA Weightlifting (USAW), results from Fiji have already been processed and their teenaged superstar Clarence "CJ" Cummings sits proudly at the top of the latest men’s all-weight list, which has seven other gold and silver medallists from Fiji in the top 10.

Another junior world champion, Luo Xiaomin of China, heads the all-weights women’s rankings.

But for the foresight of one of the men in the audience in Coventry and the groundbreaking changes made to the qualifying system for the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast those rankings would probably not exist.

Ashley Metcalfe, chief executive of British Weightlifting, was able to welcome lifters from more than 20 nations to the first standalone international competition in Britain since the 1980s, including teams from China and the United States.

There were world champions, European champions and from Kazakhstan the sport’s most famous, or infamous, name of recent years, Ilya Ilyin, who is trying to qualify for Tokyo 2020 after a doping suspension.

They were all there chasing Olympic qualifying points.

"It’s fantastic, great lifting, a really good event," Metcalfe, a big fan of the Olympic qualifying format, said. 

But back when a similar individual qualifying system was used, for the first time anywhere in the world, for the Commonwealth Games in 2018, he was opposed to it - "for selfish reasons", he says now - because he thought it would reduce England’s chances.

Other nations have complained about the new Olympic format for similar reasons, but for the sport as a whole it has been a resounding success, as Metcalfe now agrees.

The idea came from Matthew Curtain, former director of sport at the Commonwealth Games Federation (CGF), who had seen first-hand the flaws in the old system in his previous role as competition manager for weightlifting at London 2012.

"People had talked about individual qualifying before but had never done it," said Curtain, who now works in the rapidly-growing sport of teqball and has just been welcomed on to the Board of British Weightlifting.

Curtain had to deal with the "lack of certainty" in the IWF’s old team-based qualifying system, with respect to the scheduling and delivery of the event.

It meant he did not know how many lifters would be in any given weight category - it transpired there were 10 in one class at London 2012 and 24 in another.

This uncertainty meant organisers could sell tickets for only 23 sessions whereas, if there had been a set number in each event as there will be at Tokyo 2020, they could have guaranteed 30 sessions and sold 40,000 more tickets.

"Weightlifting is an individual sport, so this made no sense and cost the Organising Committee a lot of revenue," Curtain said during break in the action in Coventry.

He formally put forward his innovative and revolutionary system to the IWF President and director general, Tamás Aján and Attila Adamfi, in Poland in 2015, and when it was adopted by the CGF in 2016 it led to some criticism.

But it meant all the sessions - one athlete per nation, a maximum field of 15 - could be held within five days, saving Games organisers around $5million (£4 million/€4.5 million) and presenting a compact, popular show for spectators.

As Curtain points out and as we have seen in Coventry, a consequence of opting for individual-based qualifying is that all tournaments have greater athletic relevance and marketability.

The IWF co-opted Curtain on to its Sport Programme Commission and did a lot of planning and testing, and adapting, before it introduced its own individual qualifying system for Tokyo 2020 - as part of an overhaul of the sport when it was threatened with expulsion from the Olympic Games because of its terrible doping record.

The IWF’s qualification system, which Curtain calls "the first cousin of the Gold Coast 2018 system", offers more benefits than removing uncertainty and saving money, not least on the doping front.

Qualifying started last November and ends next April, featuring three six-month phases, and athletes must turn out at least six times in that 18-month period.

The size of the team from UK Anti-Doping in Coventry was an indicator of the rigorous testing that athletes face.

They can no longer disappear for a couple of years, as Ilyin and others did in the past. It is not possible to take performance-enhancing drugs without being caught when you are liable to be tested six times or more in 18 months.

Ilyin is a fan of the new qualifying system, which he admitted is "difficult to adapt to but fun, and good for the sport - no more sitting in the training hall for months on end".

"There is a popularisation of the athletes, they are constantly in the news," Ilyin said.

"It is also easy to see if you are improving or not."

The point about being in the news is taken up by another man in the audience in Coventry, USAW chief executive Phil Andrews.

"I never thought I’d say so but I agree with Ilya Ilyin," said Andrews. "The qualifying system gives athletes more opportunities for marketing and sponsorships.

"Look at this competition here in Coventry, all these countries here.

"It never would have happened before and what we have now is a level playing field.

"This Olympic qualifying system is a thing of beauty."

And everywhere you go at Ricoh Arena, in the training hall, the main area, at breakfast in the morning, in the bar late at night, the ranking lists are a hot topic of conversation.

That’s good news for weightlifting.