Weightlifting at the 1975 Pan American Games

Weightlifting at the 1975 Pan American Games was held in Mexico City from October 12 to 26 as part of the seventh edition of the multi-sport event. It marked the first Games contested under the two‑lift format—comprising the snatch and the clean & jerk—after the clean and press had been eliminated from international competition in 1972. Athletes competed across nine men’s weight classes ranging from flyweight (52 kg) to super heavyweight (+110 kg), with the United States narrowly topping the team rankings ahead of Cuba and Mexico. In individual events, USA lifters Lee James (82.5 kg) and Phillip Grippaldi (90 kg) earned gold medals, while Bruce Wilhelm claimed silver in the super heavyweight division. The competition reinforced the dominance of North American nations in regional weightlifting at that time.

Weightlifting at the 1975 Pan American Games
«1971 1979»

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
52 kg	Francisco Casamayor  Cuba	Narcisco Orán  Panama	Lázaro de la Cruz  Dominican Republic
56 kg	Carlos Lastre  Cuba	Paulo de Sene  Brazil	Fernando Báez Cruz  Puerto Rico
60 kg	Rolando Chang  Cuba	Andrés Santoyo  Mexico	Elkin Velázquez  Colombia
67.5 kg	Roberto Urrutia  Cuba	Daniel Cantore  United States	Amaury Cordero  Dominican Republic
75 kg	Ignacio Guanche  Cuba	James Napier  United States	Daniel Robitaille  Canada
82.5 kg	Lee James  United States	Abel López  Cuba	Pablo Justiniani  Panama
90 kg	Phillip Grippaldi  United States	Alberto Blanco  Cuba	Frank Capsouras  United States
110 kg	Russell Prior  Canada	Mark Cameron  United States	Robert Santavy  Canada
+110 kg	Gerardo Fernández  Cuba	Bruce Wilhelm  United States	Fernando Bernal  Cuba

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Cuba	6	2	1	9
2	United States	2	4	1	7
3	Canada	1	0	2	3
4	Panama	0	1	1	2
5	Brazil	0	1	0	1
	Mexico	0	1	0	1
7	Dominican Republic	0	0	2	2
8	Colombia	0	0	1	1
	Puerto Rico	0	0	1	1
Totals (9 entries)		9	9	9	27