News and Media

Archive from

IWF President Tamas Ajan Resigns IOC Honorary Membership

IWF President Tamas Ajan has resigned his IOC Honorary Membership, while remaining fully focused on ensuring the success of weightlifting at Tokyo 2020 and beyond. “Since the ARD TV show on weightlifting made its unfounded allegations at the beginning of the year, the work to investigate them has proven to be a time-consuming and costly exercise for the IWF. Ultimately, I continue to believe that the ongoing independent investigation will demonstrate the ARD’s allegations to be baseless where they concern the IWF and me personally. The promotion of weightlifting and the advancement of weightlifters have been my life’s work. After leading the IWF to become one of the international sports federations with the most effective and most respected anti-doping programmes, I am determined to ensure my work and that of so many others will not be undone. Now it is clearly vital that we maintain our focus on the success of weightlifting at Tokyo 2020. For that reason, in order to save the Olympic Movement from negative rumours and subsequent inconvenience, I have decided to resign my IOC Membership after having already served the Olympic Movement during the leadership of no less than four IOC Presidents. While looking forward to being exonerated personally, I will be concentrating only on the success of weightlifting, the sport which I

2020 IWF Junior World Championships, Bucharest, ROU – cancelled!

Communication from the IWF: "Throughout our planning for the IWF Junior World Weightlifting Championships 2020, as with any of our events, the health and wellbeing of participants has been a key priority. We have been diligent in seeking the best and latest advice in this regard. The recent spreading of the Coronavirus (COVID19) worldwide has been high on our agenda and in the focus of our concern. At present, the risk to individual health remains low. In order to mitigate impacts, however, public health authorities and governments around the world have acted quickly to put in place measures designed to slow and prevent further spread. These variously include outbound travel advisories, inbound travel bans, quarantines and self-isolation measures. Standing WHO advice is that in the case of major international sports events the individual characteristics of each event must be considered. A World Weightlifting Championships, such as the 2020 IWF JWC scheduled in Bucharest from 13 March, necessarily involves many people from about 80 countries being in close proximity indoors. Barbells and plates are touched by many hands. And in this case, the age of the athletes must also be considered. Furthermore, the extent and complexity of the public health measures being put in place is such that the IWF cannot be sure athletes of all nations would attend (or that if they did attend, they would be allowed to return home). We have concluded extensive consultations, first of all of course, with the host Romanian Weightlifting Federation. After discussion and upon request of President Nicu Vlad of the Romanian Weightlifting Federation, the Executive Board has agreed to accept the cancellation of the 2020 IWF Junior World Championships in Bucharest, Romania as a precaution due to the ongoing development COVID19. The cancellation will include the Committee meetings and Congress as well. Please kindly note the above and will let you know of further developments as soon as possible."

Czech and Norwegian visit at IWF

Delegates of the Czech and Norwegian Weightlifting Federations visited the IWF Secretariat’s office in Budapest this week and sit together with Dr Tamas Ajan and Attila Adamfi to talk about ways of co-operation between the IWF and the National Federations. [caption id="attachment_29180" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Ladislav Pastor, Petr Krol, Attila Adamfi, Dr Tamas Ajan[/caption] Petr Krol, IWF Vice President and Czech Weightlifting Federation President accompanied by his right-hand man Ladislav Pasztor, National Coach and  CWE Head of the International Committee reported on current matters of the federation, and exchanged ideas about the upcoming national-level events, Junior World Championships and Tokyo 2020. “We had several important topics to talk about: we gave an update to Dr Ajan on several matters including our plans with the Visegrad 4.” “As a Membership Commission member, I received useful information from the Secretariat that helps me prepare for the next Commission meeting.” [caption id="attachment_29179" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Stian Grimseth, Petr Krol and Dr Tamas Ajan[/caption] Stian Grimseth, President of the Norwegian Weightlifting Federation and IWF Marketing Commission member joined the three gentlemen on the second day of the meetings. “Norway has a great new generation of Youth and Junior weightlifters. We do our best to grow our sport in the country and organise more competitions in the future.” “We are planning to organize a World Championships in 2025 or 2026 and seek our governments support to do so.” “Norwegian weightlifting is continuously improving, and the IWF Development Program has an important role in this. In the framework of the program, we can train more and better-educated coaches.” “We have a whole new coaching program. Zygmunt Smalcerz, legendary Olympic champion recently joined us to help with the training of the national team” – summed up the meeting Mr

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE

IWF reports that the sample of Ms. Yenny SINISTERRA (COL) has returned an Adverse Analytical Finding for Boldenone and metabolite (S1.1 Anabolic Androgenic Steroids). As a consequence, the Athlete is provisionally suspended in view of a potential anti-doping rule violation. In any case where it is determined that the Athlete did not commit an anti-doping rule violation, the relevant decision will also be published. IWF will not make any further comments on the case until it is