Meanwhile in Russia …
European weightlifting federation president Antonio Urso (Italy) is currently on a visit in Russia where he took part in a press conference titled “Weightlifting: problems and solutions”.
Also taking part were president of the Russian WL federation Maxim Agapitov and the new head coaches Nikolai Kolesnikov and Pavel Kuznetsov.
Urso announced last year that he will run for presidency of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).
The IWF Electoral Congress will be held in Bangkok on 29-30th May. That is when Tamas Ajan’s 4th four-year term ends. He has held the position since 2001. Urso has been EWF President since 2008.
Today Urso announced: “My goal is to completely change the system, that is to establish individual quotas for the Olympics as opposed to team quotas. (via)
We have an individual sport, but athletes qualify for the games via the team quota rather than individual […]
They also talked about the possibility of hosting the 2019 European championships in Russia. (via)
Furthermore he also wants to have universal anti doping standards (independent organisations doing the testing in each country).
The problem is not whether the Russian team will be at the next Olympics, but whether there will be weightlifting at all. (via)
Sounds like a good plan to me. What do you think?
What are the are the reasons team quotas were chosen to begin with?
Typo 2016 > 2019*.
It needs more details. For the record I don’t really mind any outcomes, just whatever’s best for the athletes and sport (I don’t hold strong opinions on drugs, politics etc).
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Will there still be limits on how many people per country can participate and will there still be limits on countries per class?
If there is still this limit, will it be up to the discretion of each country who will be sent or will it be by sinclair?
If it’s not discretionary then what about in old situations like China; I heard someone (probably wlift) say that China doesn’t send people to the Olympics with past bans even if they out total other lifters. What happens in a situation, where someone like Liao out totals everyone by sinclair but cannot compete due to their past ban. Will they not send that person and then that quota is wasted? On the flip side this means that for places that do the “no past dopers” at the Olympics ‘bylaw’ (can’t think of any countries except China atm), it would stop them from earning points at competitions by using those lifters, who won’t be competing any way.
I think it’d be good for lifters who don’t have the support of their countries.
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“The problem is not whether the Russian team will be at the next Olympics, but whether there will be weightlifting at all.”
Well I mean, you had the Rio Olympics and there was “little to no” blood samples at that after 4 years of planning. You just need to read the report about rio to see what a farce that was. It also seems pretty funny that the IWF condemned the EWFED for appointing a russian antidoping chairman in the midst of a massive scandal, and now they are pushing for a competition where most of the scandal happened. Is the Russian lab actually reinstated yet? Seems saying one thing then acting another way.
The independent testers makes sense but there is always the example of the visa problem: tracking them in and out of the country. Also, when UKADA went to russia to try to test the national championships they decided not to visit the city then iirc dismissed any blame (even though ATG and HG went).
New EWF magazine btw.
http://www.ewfed.com/news_det.php?id=136
What is an individual quota?
Lifters qualify, not countries.
So you mean as long as the lifter does x competitions in the span of time, s/he can compete at the Olympics? So that means China can send as many athletes to the games as they deserve (and qualify) instead of playing the cruel game of leaving gold medal hopefuls at home for someone else who has a slightly higher chance of a gold medal? Because that would be awesome. Kang Yue, Hou Zhihui, Jiang Huihua, Chen Xiaoting, Wu Jingbiao, maybe Zhang Jie (nobody could have predicted what happened to Chen Lijun), and most of all, Liao Hui all deserved to go to Rio.
Nope, not that simple. I doubt participation limits per country will be raised even though they obviously should. The lifter is still associated with his/her NOC.
This bare bones announcement is really not enough to draw any conclusion.
Going *just* from points to names won’t affect much since the lifters are mostly the same nowadays with the 2 international comps rule.
I’m more concerned how much leeway countries will get in such a system, e.g. if they *have* to send their highest ranked lifter even if s/he’s injured.
I really like to see the top three lifters regardless of their nationality to participate in the world championships.
Olympics is different. Olympics is feel good, let be happy, and live in peace type of event.
I suggest that IOC should let the top lifter in each weight class in. This means a possibility of eight male athletes from one country in the games.
Will this lead to a Chinese domination? Hmmm… Interested in seeing how this would pan out eventually,