The German Weightlifting Federation (BVDG), which wants to host international events, is aiming for a stronger focus across the age range on youth and masters lifters, more diversity, strong athlete representation and a better business structure.

It also recognises that "a party atmosphere with beer and sausage" is an important part of the bigger picture.

This is a big week for Agenda 2028, which was devised a year ago by Florian Sperl, who was elected BVDG President in 2020.

He took the name from the Olympic Movement’s Agenda 2020 "roadmap for the future" initiative led by Thomas Bach, the German President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The project has been put into operation by a team of six dedicated Board members, all of whom have specific roles that tie in with the overall aims, and it has strong support from the German National Olympic Committee.

"It was clear that the sport needs to change, and that we needed a structured plan for the future," Sperl said.

"We have short-term, middle-term and long-term goals in six areas.

"We have the challenge to make our traditional 1896 sport a popular modern sport, to make the competition faster.

"That is the biggest task, not just in Germany but internationally."

The six specific roles for BVDG board members, all volunteers, are: athletes, public relations and media, sport development, children and youth lifters, finance and organisation, and the Bundesliga (the German national weightlifting league that began in 1964).

Sperl, 35, who lifted at national championships and in the second division of the Bundesliga, is well placed to oversee the plans as he works in project management in a big construction company that builds flats and hotels in and around Munich.

"Each Board member had the task of bringing their own ideas, which have been collated in the Agenda 2028 project," he said.

"But it was wider than that, a team effort - we asked our commissions for advice, we involved our 15 employees too.

"By the end, we had 70 steps for the future of German weightlifting."

This week Sperl had an important meeting that could lead to weightlifting being shown live on national television.

"Maybe not this year, but I have a good feeling about the future," said Sperl, who is a member of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Executive Board.

ARD, the German state broadcaster, features nine Olympic sports in The Finals, an annual multi-sport event.

Sperl met the chief executive of The Finals on Monday (January 23) and is in talks about weightlifting joining athletics, rowing and the others.

Either a shorter national championships or the final of the Bundesliga would be featured, in a packaged format to suit television.

"If we are in it will be wonderful, it will help us to gain more publicity, increase membership and improve our financial position," Sperl said.

The viewing numbers are already "amazing", Sperl said.

One Saturday last October the German national championships attracted a livestream audience, on Sport Deutschland TV, of 50,000 - better than any other sport that weekend on the channel run by the German NOC, and more than two and a half times the number of lifters registered with BVDG, which stands at 19,500.

"General enthusiasm for sport, and the popularity of weightlifting in gyms around the country - that’s why we had so many viewers," Sperl said.

"But to persuade ARD, we need better staging, more LED lights, a better show like the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last year, that was really impressive.

"I love the idea of having a second speaker like they had in Birmingham, somebody who goes to the spectators, makes some interviews, explains the sport to the audience.

"That’s what we want in Germany."

The Bundesliga is known for attracting big crowds in small-town venues, up to 1,000 people enjoying a drink, banging drums and creating an atmosphere while watching the lifters, who score via a points system across all body weights.

There will, as usual, be an array of foreigners in action this weekend in the latest round of the Bundesliga, which has welcomed lifters from other countries since the 1980s and has operated in its current league format since 1964.

The British and Italian Olympic medallists Emily Campbell and Antonino Pizzolato are among those registered with clubs this year, along with Enzo Kuworge from the Netherlands, Ritvars Suharevs from Latvia, Hristo Hristov from Bulgaria and many more from France, Austria, Poland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Spain and elsewhere.

The Bundesliga finals are in April, rounding off a season that begins in November, but that may change.

"We are thinking of moving the season, maybe March till September," Sperl said.

There are big hopes for the German Weightlifting Open, a new event that started in 2019 but was then struck down by COVID.

Sperl envisages the Open as "a big weekend for everyone who wants to compete, like a summer party event… have sausage, drink beer, make it a good mood in the hall."

While the Open would be for all lifters, the national championships would be cut back from three days to two - "fast, elite and low numbers."

Information on all competitions, athlete biographies, advice on nutrition and much more will be available on a mobile phone app now in development.

Hosting an international championship is another target for Sperl, who said: “It has to be perfect, and that’s a very big challenge, but we must have goals.

"Maybe 2025-2026, perhaps start with a European competition, youth or junior and eventually a senior European or World Championship."

Other federations have gone through these rebuilding processes with great success, most notably the United States and Italy, while Colombia has also enjoyed considerable success since winning its first Olympic gold medal in 2000.

Germany has not had an Olympic medallist since Matthias Steiner, who switched nationality from Austria back in 2008 and has never had a female on the podium at the Olympic Games.

It fared well with 14 medals at the European Juniors last year.

"We have very good new athletes, and our current elite lifters are very strong too - Simon Brandhuber, Max Lang and Nico Muller, preparing for Paris.”

Lang, a popular lifter with 122,000 social media followers, and Muller are respectively ninth and eighth in the early Olympic qualifying rankings.

Brandhuber, the athletes’ representative at BVDG, will begin his effort at the European Championships in Armenia in April.

Lisa Marie Schweizer and Nina Schroth are trying to qualify in the women’s events.

"Since I became President, one member of the Board is an athlete from our national team," said Sperl.

"It’s absolutely necessary because the athletes do not think the same as people like me, they have another opinion."