IWF reiterates commitment to anti-doping on final day of Executive Board meeting
1 October 2017; Bucharest Romania: The IWF Executive Board (EB) meeting in Bucharest, Romania concluded today with anti-doping remaining top of the agenda as the federation continues to demonstrate its commitment to ensuring weightlifting is a clean sport.
During the meeting, the IWF Clean Sport Commission, which is composed of independent experts in the field of anti-doping, presented their interim report to the EB. The Commission aims to identify innovative and pioneering ways to protect clean athletes by making anti-doping testing more accurate, more efficient and more transparent. The Commission is focused on driving forward recommendations in the following fields in order to ensure a level playing field for athletes:
- Potential changes in the IWF Anti-Doping Policy
- Anti-Doping Education – shifting the culture through targeted spread of knowledge
- Sample Collection
- Analytical innovations
Following the presentation, the IWF EB and the IWF Anti-Doping Commission reiterated its commitment to the creation of an Independent Testing Authority.
The IWF Sport Programme Commission also presented their scope of work and working plan to the IWF EB for approval. The Commission’s primary focus is to address the weightlifting event programme and allocated athlete-quota for Tokyo 2020. But, it will also look beyond 2020 and identify innovative ways to refresh the event programme to make it more attractive to global audiences. More details from the two Commissions will be released over the coming months.
Speaking following the conclusion of the EB meeting, IW President Tamas Ajan said:
“This has been a very productive meeting for the IWF and we have been greatly encouraged by the progress that has been made – particularly by the Clean Sport and Sport Programme Commissions. In a very short space of time they have already begun to identify improvements we can make that will protect and benefit our sport. It is important that as a sport we address our issues and that we put the measures in place to ensure our sport is clean today and in the future.”
During today’s meeting the IWF EB also appointed Chairs for a number of its Commissions, which are charged with finding ways to ensure the ongoing development and advancement of the sport worldwide. The IWF EB confirmed the following appointments:
- Athletes’ Commission Chair: Pyrros Dimas / Deputy Chair: Tom Goegebuer
- Women’s Commission Chair: Ursula Papandrea
- Disciplinary and Ethics Commission Chair: – Birendra Prasad Baishya
- Membership Commission Chair: Petr Krol
- Development and Education Commission Chair: Jose Quinones
- Marketing Commission Chair: Zhanat Tussupbekov
- Intercontinental Committee Chair: Dr Tamas Ajan
- Coaching and Research Committee Chair: Kamal Mahmoud Mahgoub / Deputy Chair: Karoliina Lundahl
The final decision of the IWF EB was to award the hosting rights of the 2018 IWF Junior World Championships to Uzbekistan. The Junior World Championships had originally been awarded two years ago to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
In its report submitted to the EB today, the Anti-Doping Commission expressed its willingness and dedication to cooperate with the Independent Testing Authority in the future. The EB unanimously backed this decision thus highlighting the importance of this future collaboration.
