IWF delegates state great progress in Ashgabat’s 2018 WWC preparations
As it is known, the Turkmenistan Weightlifting Federation received the right to carry out the IWF’s 2018 flagship event, the IWF World Championships, at relatively short notice. Nevertheless, Ashgabat’s undertaking seemed feasible to realize even at allocation time, based on the state-of-the-art facilities built for and used at the 2017 AIMAG. IWF delegates just having concluded the second Technical Visit can confirm that since the Executive Board’s decision and the signing of the WWC Agreement preparations had progressed very promisingly for hosting the 2018 IWF WWC. Key in operations starting to roll was the Presidential Decree ordering all related Ministries and the TKM Federation to unite forces and sources in realizing the World Championships in Turkmenistan’s capital.
The delegation consisting of Aniko Nemeth-Mora, Director of International Relations, Matyas Lencser, Competition Manager and Angelique Mottet, Operations Manager, at their follow-up visit, met with the responsible area managers, inspected the competition facilities, accommodation and catering and touched upon key issues.
“We have seen significant progress in the preparations and we managed to cover all the important areas of the World Championships organisation”, Aniko Nemeth-Mora confirmed. “Since practically all nations are required to have a visa to enter Turkmenistan, the hosts undertake to provide free of charge visa on arrival to all participants submitting the required data in time. We were also privileged to be received, once again, by Turkmenistan’s Minister of Youth and Sport, Dayanch Gurgeldiyev. His direct involvement in the Organising Committee is a guarantee that Turkmenistan will stage a high-class event.”
Competition dates have been fixed for 1-10 November 2018 with the exact program of course waiting for the definition of the new bodyweight categories. The delegation was joined by the IWF’s partner Lagardere Sports represented by its Senior Vice President and Director of Media, that enabled timely and very conclusive discussions with Turkmenistan’s State Television regarding the broadcasting of the 2018 IWF WWC.
