The Start List for the 2019 IWF JWC is up!
The START LIST for the 2019 IWF Junior World Championships to be held in Suva, Fiji is now published on the IWF website. Check it
With First Qualifying Period Over, Here’s A Look At Who Could Form U.S. Olympic Weightlifting Team In Tokyo
As of the close of the first of three qualification periods on April 30, 2019, these are the athletes who are in Olympic position from team USA: CJ Cummings (73 kg.), Wes Kitts (109 kg.) and Caine Wilkes (+109 kg.) on the men’s side and Jourdan Delacruz (55 kg.), Alyssa Ritchey (49 kg.), Olympic medalist Sarah Robles (+87 kg.) and Mattie Rogers (76 kg.) for the women. That contingent of seven would represent major progress for American weightlifting, after teams of four and three qualified for Rio in 2016 and London in 2012, respectively. It’s important to remember that one year from now only the top result from each of the three periods, plus the next-best result across all periods, will be used for an athlete’s standing – so there could definitely be some shake-ups. But with six months down and 12 to go, these names provide a snapshot of where things stand and who to watch. These Team USA athletes have distinguished themselves through their performances at two major competitions: last November’s world championships and last month’s Pan American Weightlifting Championships. Worlds and Pan Ams are considered gold events for the purposes of qualifying. That means each athlete’s total achieved at those events carries a greater weight (1.1) when calculating the athlete’s ROBI score. Athletes are then ranked by ROBI score, which constitutes the International Weightlifting Federation’s Absolute Rankings. These rankings are the basis for Olympic qualification. Click here for a complete explanation of how athletes make the Olympic weightlifting team. Team USA actually has more than enough athletes on the women’s side, but no nation can send more than four of each gender. Jessica Lucero (59 kg.) and Mattie Sasser (64 kg.) are also in qualifying position but lose out based on the USA Weightlifting tiebreaking procedure. 2016 Olympian Jenny Arthur and 20-year-old Kate Nye are also in contention. Arthur sits 13th in the women’s 76 kg., which includes three Chinese athletes ranked above her (only one can go to the Games) and Rogers, but there remains the possibility that one or both Americans could change their category in the next period. Nye has one qualifying event under her belt, Pan Ams, where she won gold in the non-Olympic 71 kg. with a 245 kg. total, which would have earned bronze at the 2018 worlds. Preference goes to athletes who are in the top eight in each weight class, all from eight different countries (“world points”). Then another five per category can qualify based on being the top-ranking athlete in each continent (“continental points”) from a country who doesn’t yet have an athlete qualified at that weight. The four U.S. women currently in qualifying position all do so via world points. Kitts and Wilkes on the men’s side would qualify via continental points. However they qualify, all Team USA athletes are hoping to hit their stride over the next two qualifying periods to secure a spot. Few are in as good of form as the 18-year-old Cummings, who is fresh off a record-setting performance at Pan Ams. The three-time junior world champion now holds the senior American 73 kg. record of 344 kg. (one of 15 records he owns after that performance), and is not far off the senior world record in clean & jerk. Cummings competed at 69 kg. until the IWF changed the weight categories last year; he has moved up seamlessly. Kitts was the gold medalist at 109 kg. at Pan Ams, where he set a personal best of 399 kg. Kitts finished 12th overall at worlds with a total of 390. Wilkes was the gold medalist at +109 kg. at Pan Ams. At the world championships, he totaled 400 kg. for the first time at worlds; his Pan Ams total was 401. One athlete missing from this list who is likely to earn that remaining fourth U.S. men’s spot in Tokyo is Harrison Maurus. Maurus has only competed at one qualifying event to date – 2018 world championships – so he doesn’t yet meet the requirements, but the 19-year-old finished sixth at last year’s worlds and in 2017 he broke a 20-year U.S. men’s medal drought when he earned bronze in the clean & jerk and total, proving he’s a strong contender for the 2020 Games. Delacruz made her first world championships appearance in 2018. The holder of six junior American records went on to take gold at Pan Ams. As for Ritchey, she dominated Pan Ams, sweeping her way to the gold medals for the first time in her third consecutive appearance at the competition. The lone Olympian on this list, 2016 bronze medalist Sarah Robles finished just off the podium at the world championships in fifth after taking gold in 2017. But in the process, she tied Cheryl Haworth’s American record in snatching 128 kg. After tying her own American record in the clean & jerk with 162 kg., she broke Haworth’s total record of 287 kg. with a 290. She then went on to dominate at Pan Ams. Rogers, holder of three American records, finished third in the clean & jerk at the world championships after moving up to the new 71 kg. weight class. Rogers, competing at less than 70 kilos, finished fifth overall. But with that bronze medal, added to her 69 kg. bronze at the 2017 worlds, she became the first American to win back-to-back world medals since 1999. The Olympic categories around Rogers’ weight are 64 kg. and 76 kg., so she has said she plans to move up to 76 for future competitions. Rogers has already entered one qualifying event, the bronze-level Las Vegas International Open in March, at 76. The qualifying period that began May 1 runs until Oct. 31. Two more gold qualifying events are coming up for Team USA. The Pan American Junior Championships will take place in Cuba May 20-28, followed by the World Junior Championships in Fiji June 1-8. The main senior competition this summer will be the Pan American Games July 27-30 in Lima, Peru. The Games are a silver-level event for Olympic qualification (weighted at 1.05). The 2019 world championships, again a gold event, run Sept. 18-27 in Thailand. Source: Todd Kortemeier, Team
The latest issue of the South American Federation Magazine is out
The sixth issue of the South American Federations Magazine is out and available online in Spanish language. Click here to read
IWF Fulfils Final Criteria For Confirmation On Paris 2024 Sports Programme
The International Weightlifting Federation has completed that last outstanding criteria required for the IOC’s March 2019 decision, lifting the conditional status of weightlifting’s place on the Paris 2024 sports programme, to be enforced. The IOC’s March decision was based on a comprehensive series of measures established and implemented by the IWF in recent years, all aimed at protecting clean athletes and promoting clean sport. The final measure to be put in place was a contract with the International Testing Agency (ITA) that extends an agreement already put in place between the IWF and ITA in November 2018, with responsibility for a number of anti-doping areas being transferred to the ITA. “Taken together, we are certain that the measures the IWF has put in place will contribute to sustained culture change for our sport. We are very happy that the latest steps the IWF has taken mean our athletes can train for an Olympic future with much greater certainty,” said IWF Director General Attila Adamfi. Weightlifting is one of the handful of sports to have already featured on the sports programme of the first edition of the modern Olympic Games in 1896. The sport has recently known a popular resurgence among the general public, thanks to the increasing popularity of functional fitness and the proliferation of lifting platforms in gyms around the world. “We are very much looking forward to having weightlifters join us in Paris in 2024,” said Paris 2024 Director General Etienne Thobois. “We had already been planning on having great competitions for weightlifting, and the certainty of their place on the programme now allows us to plan more effectively, in just the same way as it allows weightlifters to train with the proper focus.” The improvements made by the IWF are the result of a wide-ranging team effort involving the World Anti-Doping Agency, national anti-doping agencies, independent experts, educators and the International Olympic Committee. "We’ve been working particularly closely with the IWF, specifically on the issue of clean sport and we’ve seen the IWF implementing concrete measures to ensure a sustainable change in favour of clean weightlifting, not least thanks to a newly designed Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 qualification system, which links the number of quota available per country to their history of doping to explicitly reward clean sport” said IOC Sports Director Kit
The Arafura Games successfully concluded
The Weightlifting event at the 12th Arafura Games held in Darwin (AUS), concluded with many Oceania records broken along the way. The weightlifting event held at the new Darwin Convention Centre from the 27th to 29th April produced some excellent results with a packed house every session. Seventeen countries took part in the event. At the games, six different sports were conducted at the same time – in different halls – which indicates just how large the Darwin Convention Centre is, perfectly suitable for international level competitions. Some of the highlights were the battles in the men session in the 67kg and 96kg categories. In the women sessions, we saw tight battles in the 59kg, 76kg, 81kg and +87kg categories. The weightlifting event at the Arafura Games was honoured by the attendance of the IWF General Secretary, Mohammed Jaloud and the IWF Vice President, Nicu Vlad. Both gentlemen stayed for the full duration of the tournament. See the results of the event here. Source:
U.S. Olympic Committee announces Best of April honors for Team USA Awards presented by Dow
Standout performances during April earned weightlifter CJ Cummings, surfer Caroline Marks and the U.S. Women’s World Championship Ice Hockey Team Best of April honours for the Team USA Awards presented by Dow, the United States Olympic Committee announced today. Cummings swept gold and set 15 records – three junior worlds, three junior and three senior Pan American, and three junior and three senior American records – at the Pan American Championships in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Cummings went a perfect six for six in his attempts, Snatched a meet-best 153 kg, and had a meet-best Clean and Jerk of 191 kg. His 344 kg Total was enough to crown him Pan American champion, and he was named Best Male Lifter in the competition. About the Team USA Awards Each National Governing Body may nominate one female, one male and one team per discipline. An internal nominating committee selects five nominees from both the male and female categories, and three from the team category to advance to the voting round. Votes received from NGB representatives and select members of the media account for 50 percent of the final tally, with the other half determined by online fan voting via TeamUSA.org/Awards. Source: Team
