Record level of anti-doping tests for 2017 IWF World Championships

2017/10/20 12:03:20

The IWF has already banned nine nations from the World Championships and beyond for having three or more of those retest positives. Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Turkey are banned for a year.

 


By Brian Oliver, Inside the Games website, reporting from Durres, Oct 16, 2017

 

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) will ensure there is a record level of testing at their World Championships in Anaheim, California from November 28 until December 5 - and before.

 

"More anti-doping testing is expected to take place at this year’s World Championships than at any previous edition," said a statement by the IWF, which is expected to test more than half of all competitors.

 

"This will be accompanied by widespread outreach and educational programmes, organised in conjunction with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and USADA [United States Anti-Doping Agency] which aim to increase awareness and understanding and support cultural change."

 

At the last World Championships, also hosted by the United States in Houston in 2015, the IWF oversaw testing of 49 per cent of the 584 athletes who competed.

 

The record number of 24 positives from those tests was followed by 49 more positives in the retesting of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.

 

The most high-profile of the Houston positives was Aleksei Lovchev, the world-record-breaking Russian super-heavyweight who was banned for four years.

 

This in turn led to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President, Thomas Bach, saying weightlifting had “a massive doping problem”.

 

Within days of the World Championships finishing, the IWF must present a report to the IOC on how it intends to deal with doping. 

 

If the IOC rejects the report, the sport would be dropped from the Olympic programme from 2024.

 

The IWF has already banned nine nations from the World Championships and beyond for having three or more of those retest positives.

 

Russia, Kazakhstan, China, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Turkey are banned for a year.

 

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https://www.insidethegames.biz/article ... 7-iwf-world-championships

 

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