Weightlifting is for everyone, no matter their background, level of experience or current degree of strength. 

From starting out with dumbbells to competitive Olympic-grade bumper plates, weightlifting is immensely rewarding, particularly when you transcend your limits and reach a milestone you never knew you could.

Remarkably, the International Olympic Committee was extremely late in realising this basic fact that everyone else had known for over a century, with the first women’s Olympic weightlifting events only taking place in the summer of 2000.

This is remarkable because 98 years before this, one of the most famous and influential pioneering weightlifters ever took on the father of modern bodybuilding, and won.

The Undefeated Lady Hercules

Born in 1884 to a pair of circus performers, Katherina Brumbach was part of a huge family of acrobats and strongwomen. However, Katie would not only become the standout of her family, but she would also become one of the most famous women’s weightlifters in the early history of the sport.

She started out in her father’s travelling troupe as a prodigious wrestler; the elder Phillipe would offer 100 Deutschemarks to any man who could defeat her in a contest. Not one of them could, but she would meet her future husband and life partner Max Heymann this way.

Mr Heymann would quickly become part of Mrs Brumbach’s act, being lifted up by one hand and being paraded around as if she were performing a traditional military drill, with Max playing the role of the rifle being spun and swung around.

This sense of theatricality would ultimately make her famous, particularly when she adopted a new moniker she won from one of the most famous strongmen of the era.

Becoming Katie Sandwina

Perhaps her most famous accomplishment and one of the most famous events of her life was a contest that took place between herself and Eugen Sandow, an innovative strongman known as the father of bodybuilding. This event was where she figuratively and literally got her name.

Born in Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad) when it was part of Prussia, Mr Sandow was a critical figure in both competitive weightlifting and bodybuilding.

Whilst his 1901 bodybuilding contest is one of his most famous accomplishments, he had a series of famous challenge matches which would form the template for competitive weightlifting as a sport, where two bodybuilders challenge each other to lift progressively heavier weights.

Exactly how and why the contest took place was unclear, although according to Mr Heymann, Mr Sandow was somewhat patronising to her when she was lifting weights in a New York Athletic Club, and this led to an impromptu challenge.

The contest was fiercely competitive, only ending after Mrs Brumbach lifted 140 kg (300 lbs) over her head with relative ease, whilst Mr Sandow could only lift it up to his chest. 

After her victory, she started to perform as Katie Sandwina, partly a homage to an influential figure in bodybuilding but also partly a reminder of her victory and proof that weightlifting is for everyone.

She would also become known as “The Female Breitbart” after another challenge by a famous strongman, this time Siegmund Breitbart.

At the time, Mr Breitbart was famous for tearing apart iron chains with his bare hands, and when he spotted Mrs Sandwina in the audience, he challenged her to break the chain.

She did so with incredible ease, jokingly thanking him for the lesson. Allegedly, he avoided performing in the same city as her for the rest of his life.

Sandwina The Suffragette

Mrs Sandwina would become a very famous strongwoman, getting her big break as the leading attraction for the Banham and Bailey three-ring circus, where she not only lifted barbells but also carried a 272 kg (600 lbs) cannon on her shoulder and battled with horses in a test of strength.

Beyond her stage success, however, she was an exceptionally vocal advocate of the right to vote for women, which garnered her the name “Sandwina the Suffragette” and led to her becoming vice president of Barnum & Bailey’s suffragette society.

In one legend from that time, a large strongman voiced a somewhat patronising view of the idea of women’s suffrage. Mrs Sandwina’s response to his taunts was to lift him up and throw him into a crowd of his friends, knocking them all over in the process.

She would continue to perform in the circus up until she turned 60, and even when she retired to open a restaurant in Queens, New York, she still had the strength to physically throw out meddlesome customers.

Unfortunately, she died in 1952 of cancer and did not see the evolution in women’s weightlifting that she started.