Is hypertrophy work necessary for weightlifting?

Nah. It can be helpful, and I often program hypertrophy work, but not a lot of it. Just to keep a baseline level of muscle. Most olympic weightlifters are only jacked because they are on unholy amounts of PEDs. Olympic weightlifting is not a sport akin to muscle growth (unlike powerlifting, for example), and very few weightlifters focus a lot on hypertrophy work.

~ Prem