IWF Executive Board Meeting in Houston
The IWF Executive Board concluded its two days meeting in Houston prior to the 2015 IWF World Championships. IWF Committees (TC, MC, and CRC) and Commissions (Marketing, Women’s, and Athletes’) gave a report to the Executive Board. The Technical and Coaching & Research Committees have been looking at ways and innovations to improve the quality of the weightlifting events, the fairness in refereeing and to bring the progress of the competitions closer to the audience. Their conclusions were considered by the Board. With a view to 2015 as “The Year of Women”, focus has been directed to the gender equality and the work of the Women’s Commission; at the same time, the Athletes’ Commission’s role has been accentuated – both in line with the IOC Olympic Agenda 2020. The Board stated that significant improvements have been achieved in increasing the publicity and visibility of weightlifting thanks to new communication policies and activities, including professional cooperation with the media, production of films for the theme “Road to Rio”. A new marketing structure was presented and is now under further study to better exploit the potential of the sport. A series of World Cup and Grand Prix Events is designed to keep the international stars of weightlifting onstage and onscreen throughout the year. The Executive Board received the detailed report from the IWF Anti-Doping Commission regarding the 2015 statistics and cases as well as further issues. Due to the special Anti-Doping Policy for Rio 2016, the EB confirmed that Bulgaria is not eligible to participate in the upcoming Olympic Games and decided to withdraw 1 quota from Romania due to the multiple positive cases in the qualification period. The Executive Board took the decision that Honduras, Panama, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan cannot participate at the 2015 IWF World Championships Houston, USA since their athletes did not submit their whereabouts information in ADAMS. The Anti-Doping Commission reported that the steroid profile is very effective and provides useful information to be used for Anti-Doping purposes. A Masters Weightlifting roadmap was approved by the EB and it aims to reorganize the structure of the cooperation between the IWF and Masters Weightlifting. With regard to security considerations and certain technical difficulties reported by the host Tunisia, the Executive Board decided to withdraw the 2016 IWF Junior World Championships from Tunis, Tunisia and reallocated it to Tbilisi, Georgia. Reviewing the bid documents of 5 candidates and arriving at a shortlist of two (Peru and Turkey), the Board eventually gave the right to organise the 2018 IWF World Championships to Lima, Peru. Agberto Guimaraes, Director of Sport and Pedro Meloni, Weightlifting Manager reported to the Board on the status of the Rio 2016 preparations, whereupon the EB approved the list of International Technical Officials who will play a significant role in the success of the Games. Finally, the Board discussed the progress of the 2015 Budget and approved the Budget of the Federation for the year of 2016. The biggest part of the budget is still allocated to the IWF Development
