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IWF Development Funds kick off Nordic Athletes’ Commission work

The Nordic Weightlifting Federation (NWF) has modernized its constitution this fall to follow the new IWF Constitution. Modelling the IWF Athletes’ Commission the NWF has now an active Athletes’ Commission with ten active athletes, a male and a female representative from each member federation. Amongst themselves the athletes chose Katla Björk Ketilsdóttir (ISL) as the Chair, Ine Andersson (NOR) as Vice Chair, Árni Rúnar Baldursson (ISL) as Secretary and Saara Retulainen (FIN) as Social Media Administrator. The NWF AC was welcomed with IWF AC Chair Sarah Davies who described work that the IWF Athletes’ Commission does. IOC Athlete 365 material was reviewed on how to start Athletes’ Commissions as the IOC recommends that athletes are present at all levels, not only at the international level. All new NWF AC members felt that starting an Athletes’ Commission in their own countries is the next step. The commission also brainstormed on how the sport can be made more reachable to the common spectators. The sport is popular in the Olympic years as the exposure from the Olympic movement brings a wider audience to weightlifting competitions. The athletes discussed their ideas about how the audience who doesn’t know our sport can be made into a fan. Once the ideas started to flow, the commission realized they must have their next meeting very soon! The athletes have three votes at the Nordic Congresses held twice each year. The Nordic AC will work mainly online but the first ever meeting was able to be held in person with the support of the IWF Development

IWF Meets, Moves Towards Elections

Madrid, 30 January 2022; The International Weightlifting Federation’s (IWF) Member Federations met at a Special Congress held online today and approved key measures that will enable elections to be held as planned. The elections for the IWF’s leading bodies are scheduled for 25-26 June 2022. Among the measures approved were constitutional amendments to ensure a sound legal basis for the elections, which will be a call for candidates being issued on 2 March and eligibility checks on the candidates completed by 30 April. “A year ago, the IOC set us three key tests: reform our governance, ensure clean weightlifting competitions at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, and deliver culture change through the holding of elections. With two of those already completed, the IWF is now well on its way to delivering the third,” said IWF Interim President Dr Michael Irani. In addition to adopting constitutional amendments, the IWF also established a fully-ratified Ethics and Disciplinary Commission (EDC) representing all the five continents, whose initial work will include the vetting of candidates for the June elections. The members of the Commission are: Gabriel Nigon, Switzerland (Chair) Nasr El-Din Azzam, Egypt Ahmad Bin Nooh Al-Thani, Qatar Lorena Novoa, Colombia Charles Quagliata, Australia The appointed reserved members are the following: Ana Maria Montoya Ruales, Peru Valéry Horyna, Switzerland An Independent Investigative Chamber (IIC) was also established with the following members: Dev Kumar Parmar, United Kingdom Elda Gjoka, Albania Adnan Rhoma, Libya Romain Bizzini, France Lorenza Mel, Italy “The IWF is pleased to welcome independent legal expertise to ensure the elections are conducted to the very highest standards,” continued Dr. Irani. “With our conduct in the coming weeks and months, we can ensure that whatever the results for individual candidates, weightlifting will be the

IWF Constitution Translated Into Additional Languages As Governance Reform Continues

The IWF Constitution, independently-drafted and then approved by Member Federations in August 2021, has been translated to Arabic, French, Russian and Spanish as part of the IWF’s ongoing governance reform efforts. The implementation of the provisions of the new Constitution is well underway and the IWF will hold a Special Congress on 30 January, where the members of the independent Ethics and Disciplinary Commission, responsible for determining eligibility of candidates ahead of the IWF Electoral Congress on 25-26 June 2022, will be elected. “This marks another important step in the IWF’s governance reform ahead of our Special Congress at the end of this month, “ said IWF Interim President Dr Michael Irani. “The translation of the Constitution into four additional languages ensures that the vast majority of federations have the opportunity to access the document in their native language. Our focus is now firmly on the Congress at the end of this month and ensuring we remain on the right path, in line with the requirements set out by the IOC.” The new Constitution is seeking to establish vital principles including athlete representation, gender equality and independent oversight.  A minimum of three athlete representatives will serve on the reformed IWF Executive Board, and women will fill at least 30% of elected positions. Ethics and discipline matters will be handled independently of the IWF Executive Board, building on interim arrangements that had already been put in place in recent months. In addition to this, the robust eligibility criteria and term limits outlined in the Constitution will ensure that the future IWF Executive Board benefits from a regular influx of new talents and will notably deprive National Federations with a high number of doping cases will not have access to board-level

IWF Special Congress – Agenda and related materials

Please be informed that the agenda of the Special Congress can be downloaded from here. All materials related to point 3 of the agenda “Approval of the proposed changes to the IWF Constitution and Rules” can be downloaded from here. Please note that the IWF Executive Board is preparing a list of appointments of the Members for the Ethics and Disciplinary Commission (EDC) and the Independent Investigative Chamber (IIC). The final list of appointments will be sent to all Member Federations in advance of the IWF Special

PUBLIC DISCLOSURE

The ITA reports that it has asserted an ADRVs against Russian weightlifters Aslan Bideev (RUS) and Andrey Kozlov (RUS) under Article 2.1 (Presence of a Prohibited Substance or its Metabolites or Markers) and Article 2.2 (Use or Attempted Use by an Athlete of a Prohibited Substance or a Prohibited Method) of the IWF Anti-Doping Rules (IWF ADR). The Article 2.1 assertions are based on ITA’s re-analysis campaign on samples provided by the weightlifters during the 2012 IWF European Championships in Antalya, Turkey in April 2012. The samples had initially been reported as “negative” in 2012, but thanks to the improvements in the detection methods, the WADA-accredited laboratory of Cologne conducted further analysis in 2021 which revealed the presence of prohibited steroids. The Article 2.2 assertions are based on investigations conducted by WADA’s Intelligence and Investigation Department (WADA I&I) and by Professor Richard McLaren into allegations of systemic doping practices in Russian sport as well as Moscow Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) data retrieved by WADA I&I over time. The evidence was provided by WADA I&I to the ITA in 2021 for further assessment. In particular, these investigations uncovered LIMS data indicative of the presence of banned substances in samples provided by Aslan Bideev in 2012 and 2013 and Andrey Kozlov in 2012. The athletes have been informed of the cases and have been provisionally suspended until the resolution of the matter. Pursuant to the IWF’s delegation of its anti-doping program to the ITA, the prosecution of the cases is being handled entirely by the ITA. Given that the cases are underway, there will be no further comments during the ongoing

University of Lausanne and International Weightlifting Federation To Team Up

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) and the University of Lausanne, through its Institute of Sport Sciences (ISSUL) are teaming up in the context of a research project on international sport federations’ organizational performance. The overall research project is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation for a period of four years. The project addresses two key questions. Firstly, how international sport federations’ organizational performance at a global level (sporting, economic, media, social and societal performance) can be measured efficiently and effectively. And secondly, how findings can inform and guide the federation’s strategic management. For this purpose, the researchers Prof. Emmanuel Bayle and Josephine Clausen (Ph.D) have developed a conceptual performance measurement model that is tailored to the reality of international sport federations. “The IWF has made great strides in terms of improving its governance,” said IWF Interim President Dr Michael Irani. “We have adopted a new constitution, developed new mechanisms for incorporating athletes in our decision making and more. But there is always more that can be done. The IWF is grateful for this chance to engage with independent experts, in order to improve our future work.” The overarching objective of the UNIL research project is to help international sport federations analyze, understand, monitor and manage their organizational performance holistically. Based on the fine-grained analysis of a federation’s organizational capacity, specific lines of actions can be defined within the various dimensions covered in the performance measurement model. Over a period of six months starting in January 2022, the goal of the collaboration between IWF and ISSUL is to apply the performance measurement model to the IWF and to help the federation in making informed decisions. “We are excited to collaborate with IWF on this first application of our performance measurement model. Our goal is to collaborate with federations that seek to analyze their performance holistically in relation to their mission and their strategic objectives and to help them steer their organizational performance based on informed decision-making,” said senior ISSUL researcher Josephine