Archive from 2012

African Championships – Continental Olympic Qualification Event in Nairobi, Kenya

The Weightlifting Federation Africa held its Executive Board Meeting in the city of Nairobi, Kenya prior to the kick off of the African Championships - Continental Olympic Qualification Event. Dr. Tamas Ajan, IWF President, Dragomir Cioroslan, IWF Vice President and Dato Ong Poh Eng, IWF Executive Board Member participated in the Meeting. The Opening Ceremony was held in the presence of Kipchoge Keino, NOC President and IOC Honorary Member. The competition started on March 30 at the Nairobi City Hall with the participation of 49 women and 85 men weightlifters. Team Nigeria - coached by Patrick Bassey - which is in Nairobi with a full squad of 15 lifters (8 male and 7 female) is billed to slug it out with the biggest threat coming from Algeria and Cameroon. 15 countries are competing at the event, and 4 Continental Records were broken immediately on the first day. Chinenye FIDELIS (NGR) lifted 87kg in the Snatch and ended with 202kg in the Total, being both Junior and Senior African Records. Check out the results

London 2012: Final Coordination Commission visit

With four months to go until the London 2012 Olympic Games, the IOC Coordination Commission has arrived in the capital for its final visit to the host city. The Commission, led by Chairman Denis Oswald, will spend three days - 28 to 30 March - meeting with the London 2012 Organising Committee as well as with representatives from the government and local authorities to discuss progress and final preparations as the countdown to the Opening Ceremony gathers pace. Games experience Over the past seven years, the Coordination Commission has offered ongoing support and guidance to LOCOG, as they have worked together towards delivering Games of the highest calibre. Central to this shared objective is a commitment to providing the best possible service for all Games stakeholders, athletes, International Federations, National Olympic Committees, spectators and the media. Maximising the experience of these groups will form a key part of discussions over the next three days. Key topics Other topics to be examined during this, the Commission’s tenth and final visit, include the look of the venues, Olympic Park operations and key promotional tools such as the Olympic Torch Relay. The Commission members will also hear about the successful conclusion of the second phase of test events, and preparations for the next cluster of test events. In addition, there will be an update on marketing and the Paralympic Games. London 2012 London was elected as the host city for the Games of the XXX Olympiad on 6 July 2005 at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore. London eventually succeeded in the fourth round of voting, taking 54 votes from a possible 104. London faced stiff opposition during the vote from the other four Candidate Cities: Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid. There will be 26 sports on the Olympic programme in London in 2012 and around 10,500

Open Letter in response to the Editorials in the EWF Magazine No.11

To Dream or to Work…? The answer to the above question is very simple to many of us and maybe not, to some of us. Working for our beloved sport for the past 35 years has taught me that with dreaming you cannot achieve unity, strength and respect that the weightlifting sport today holds within and receives from the Olympic Movement. Click here to read the English / Spanish / Russian

The 2012 London Olympic Games Qualification is updated

The 2012 London Olympic Men’s Qualification status is final. The Women's Qualification status is not yet final due to one pending case. It will be updated accordingly as soon as possible. The updated Qualification can be found here: Men /

ADAMS: Portuguese recognized by the World Anti-doping Agency

Portuguese was recognized as an official language on the ADAMS system run by the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA). Portuguese and Mandarin were approved as official ADAMS system languages at a meeting of the World Anti-doping Agency in Lausanne, Switzerland on Wednesday. The Anti-Doping Administration & Management System (ADAMS) is a Web-based database management system that simplifies the daily activities of all stakeholders and athletes involved in the anti-doping system. Its seat is in Lausanne, Switzerland, and its headquarters are in Montreal, Canada. WADA’s official languages include English, French, Spanish, German, Japanese, Russian, Italian, Dutch and Arabic. Read more here:

Anti-Doping Chief Calls for More Blood Testing to Catch ‘Cheats’

Athletes using performance- enhancing drugs such as human growth hormone are “getting away with it” because not enough blood testing is being done, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency said. In 2010, WADA accredited laboratories analyzed 258,267 samples taken from in- and out-of-competition testing worldwide. Out of that amount, “effectively only 5,000” were blood samples, WADA president John Fahey said in an interview in Lausanne, Switzerland, where the doping agency has a regional office. The rest of the testing was done on urine samples. In 2010, there were only 3 positive cases of human growth hormone (HGH), according to statistics on the WADA website. HGH can only be detected in blood. HGH is considered a performance-enhancing drug because of its ability to grow muscle and aid recovery after training, while not being detectable in urine, unlike anabolic steroids. A test for HGH was first introduced at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Read more here: