Pan American Weightlifting Federation Electoral Congress

February 23, 2020

The Pan American Weightlifting Federation held its Electoral Congress on 22 February 2020 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. All 28 Member Federations from the Continent participated. Luis Mejia Oviedo, President of Dominican Olympic Committee and IOC member greeted the delegates in the presence of Ivan Dibos, IOC member from Peru. IWF was represented by Mohammed Jalood, General Secretary, Intarat Yodbangtoey, 1st Vice President, Nicu Vlad, Vice President, Attila Adamfi, Director General and Timea Horvath, Development and Education Manager. The new PAWF Executive Board: José Quiñones (PER) - President William Peña (COL) - General Secretary Gustavo Malgor (ARG) - 1st Vice President Luis Seijas (VEN) - Vice President Andres Vargas (PUR) - Vice President Phil Andrews (USA) - Treasurer Nadia Alvarado (MEX) - Member Luis Zambrano (ECU) - Member Henry Phillips (PAN) - Member Technical Committee Joe Triolo (USA) Maritza Ortiz (DOM) Jose Enrique Alarcon (ECU) Medical Committee Dr Mark Lavallee (USA) Dr Roxanna Vargas (DOM) Dr Ricardo Guerra (CUB) Coaching & Research Committee Kyle Pierce (USA) Carlos Cuervo (CUB) *Run-off to be held between Maria Isabel Urrutia (COL) and David Montero (BRA) in the coming Congress. The new Executive Board held its first meeting on the same day where they appointed the following Co-opted Members: Andrew Callender (BAR) - to represent the interest of the Caribbean Juan Carlos Aburto (CHI) - representative of the host of the next Pan American Games Osmar Urbieta (PAR) - representative of the host of the next South American Games The EB appointed Phil Andrews (USA) as Director General. Among the urgent improvement of the Federation, with a view to addressing governance, the EB created the following Commissions seeking one member from each region of the Continent: - Governance Review - Equality - Member Federation Governance Support IWF congratulates to all elected officials and wishes them a prosperous and successful

February 21, 2020

Coaching and Anti-Doping Seminar in Tashkent

On 13th February 2020, a Coaching and Anti-Doping Seminar was conducted for the participants of the Asian Youth and Junior Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The seminar was opened by Mr Mohammed Jalood, IWF General Secretary and Mr Bahtiyor Abdukarimov, General Secretary of Uzbekistan Weightlifting Federation. The anti-doping part was presented by Ms Galiya Zhumbayeva and Ms Maira Bakasheva from Central Asian RADO. They talked about the procedures and behaviour of the athletes and also gave information about the coaches and federation's responsibility in the fight against doping. Mr José Quinones, IWF Vice President and Chairman of the IWF Development and Education Commission provided information about the IWF Development Program. He explained the details of the application, the forms to be completed and the possibilities, for what can the federations apply. Finally, Mr Milan Mihajlovic, Member of IWF Technical Committee, presented the importance of implementation of IWF TCRR during weightlifting events. The coaches got practical advice about their behaviours during competition. Examples were shown of the different Technical Officials' roles (Chief Marshal, Technical Controller, Timekeeper, etc) and their procedures, what are their duties and what can and have to do the coaches during the competition. The feedback of the seminar was very positive, in the end, the participants signed the PLAY TRUE flag, showing their determination for the clean

February 20, 2020

IWF 2019 LIFTER OF THE YEAR – AMERICAN AND GEORGIAN WINNERS

Nye for the first, Talakhadze for the third time Just like in 2017 and 2018, Lasha TALAKHADZE became the year’s Best Male Lifter in 2019 again at the Lifters of the Year election. In WORLD WEIGHTLIFTING’s voting, the Best Woman Lifter is Katherine Elizabeth NYE. Starting with the latter is not only dictated by politeness but also because NYE – last year’s 71kg world champion – earned this title for the first time and, what is more, this is the first time since 1982 that a USA athlete has won! Among the men there is no change in the last three elections: Georgia’s giant, TALAKHADZE celebrates his third victory in a row. No wonder, he laid the foundations for this honour with further stupefying world records and another world champion title in 2019 in the superheavy category. Another record has been registered in this election: more than 50 thousand, precisely 50,514, ballots were cast online on the IWF website for the five male and five female pre-selected lifters, each of them world champions in 2019. The male candidates received 2,000 votes less than the female quintet. NYE received 9,105 votes for her pole position; followed by KUO Hsing-Chun from Chinese Taipei with her 7,755 nominations of best lifter. In third place we have Colombian Arboleda Leidy Yessenia SOLIS with her 4,784 votes. In men, TALAKHADZE overwhelmed with his 17,084 votes; Armenian Simon MARTIROSYAN was given 5,514 and third-placed Chinese LYU Xiaojun earned 2,169 votes from the fans. It is worth noting that LYU had already been on the peak a decade ago: in 2009 he was the Lifter of the Year. Congratulations to all these wonderful champions! VOTING RESULT 2019 Men 1 TALAKHADZE Lasha GEO +109kg 17,084 2 MARTIROSYAN Simon ARM 109KG 5,514 3 LYU Xiaojun CHN 81kg 2,169 4 SHI Zhiyong CHN 73kg 1,053 5 OM Yun Chol PRK 55kg 410 Women 1 NYE Katherine Elizabeth USA 71kg 9,105 2 KUO Hsing-Chun TPE 49KG 7,755 3 SOLIS Arboleda Leidy Yessenia COL 81KG 4,784 4 DENG Wei CHN 64kg 1,796 5 RIM Jong Sim PRK 76kg

February 19, 2020

A fruitful Asian Youth and Junior Championships in Tashkent, UZB

After several successful events in recent years, Uzbekistan hosted another outstanding event, the 2020 Asian Junior and Youth Championships was held between 13th and 19th of February in Tashkent. The Uzbek capital saw 202 athletes lifting this past week (85 women and 117 men) from 17 countries, including both age groups. In the Junior competitions, the home country topped the women’s medal table (13,5,2) followed by VIE (5,4,2) and KAZ (5,2,2). As of the men, the Kazakh junior team came out first (10,2,6), then INA (7,2,0) and IRI (4,10,5). The Uzbek athletes performed well in the youth competitions too, ending up second in the women’s tally (9,9,3) behind TPE (9,10,2) and ahead of KAZ (6,0,0), while topping the men’s table (7,11,6) followed by INA (6,0,0) and IRI (3,7,2). The event closed with 6 new Youth World Records: DO Tu Tung (VIE) M55kg, 110kg Snatch; FAATHIR Muhammad (INA) M61kg, 154kg C&J and 273kg Total; JUNIANSYAH Rizki (INA) M73kg, 139 kg Snatch and 307kg Total; BEKBOLAT Rakhat (KAZ) M96kg, 198 C&J. In conjunction with the Championships, an AWF Executive Board Meeting was held in Tashkent, where the Board agreed to relocate the 2020 Asian Championships from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, to be held during 16-25 April in Tashkent. Building on the success of the Asian Youth and Junior Championships and years of experience in hosting various international events, the Executive Board had no doubt that the Uzbek Weightlifting Federation will deliver an excellently organised competition despite the limited time for

February 18, 2020

5th International Fajr Cup

The International Fajr Cup, a Silver Level Qualification Event for Tokyo 2020 was organized for the 5th time this year, hosted by Iran in the city of Rasht, from 1-5 February 2020. Altogether, 13 national teams, consisting 31 athletes took part, including World and Olympic champions such as EKO Yuli Irawan (INA), who did not fail to impress again with another gold or HASHEMI Ali (IRI), swiping the 109kg category. Exclusively man lifters of Iran, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Cameron, Indonesia, Bosnia, Iraq, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Norway competed in 7 bodyweight categories. The home team, Iran, proved to be the strongest with 448 points, ahead of Iraq and Indonesia who gained 245 and 241 points respectively. The organizers did their best to provide all the amenities and facilities for both the participants and spectators and the high interest to watch the competition and cheer for the lifters on the spot proves them to be successful. Even local political notabilities, such as the Iranian Sport Minister and the Ambassador of Indonesia in Iran attended the

February 17, 2020

Asian Championships relocated to Uzbekistan

A decision was made on the AWF Executive Board meeting in Tashkent to relocate the Asian Championships from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan. The Asian Championships will be held 16th – 25th April 2020 at Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The updated competition documents are available, 2020 ASIAN

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