News

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) successfully held a Congress of its Member Federations today, in Tashkent and online. 101 Member Federations took part (69 in-person, 32 online), approving a clear set of dates and steps related to the holding of elections for the IWF Executive Board and other Committee positions.

“Thanks to today’s decisions, the IWF has been able to finish the year as it started: on track towards meaningful reform and culture change,” said IWF Interim President Dr Michael Irani. “We were asked to deliver three things: new governance, clean competitions and faces in our leadership team. We’ve already delivered the first two. The third is certain to happen because of the provisions mandated by our new Constitution for more athletes and more women on the IWF Executive Board. And now we have a firm date.”

Elections had initially been scheduled to take place during today’s Congress. They were suspended last month, on the basis of advice from the IWF’s independent Legal Commission and will now take place on 25-26 June 2022.

Further key dates for the electoral process, which will now be restarted, were also confirmed:

• IWF Extraordinary Congress – 30 January
• Call for Candidatures – 2 March
• Deadline for the completion of candidate vetting by the EDC – 30 April

On the agenda for the IWF Extraordinary Congress of 30 January will be amendments to the IWF Constitution aimed at speeding up the electoral process, on the basis that it will be repeating some steps that were recently undertaken. It should be noted that there are no proposals to weaken the strict eligibility criteria against which candidates will be vetted.

Today’s IWF Congress also featured a range of reports from the IWF leadership team, as the IWF works towards the forthcoming IWF World Championships, successful weightlifting competitions at Paris 2024 and securing the sport’s Olympic future.