Weightlifting works to escape burden of murky Olympic past

Less than three years after being threatened with Olympic death, weightlifting nears the end of its Paris programme with its leaders, and their drug testers, saying the sport has a future on the biggest stages.

After the Tokyo Games in 2021, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach called weightlifting one of his "problem children".

"They must successfully address historical incidents of doping in the sport," he warned.

The IOC cut weightlifting from 14 golds to 10 in Paris with no guarantee it would be on the schedule in Los Angeles in four years' time.

On Saturday, on the fourth of five days of competition in Paris, Mohammed Jalood, the president of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) said he thought his sport was no longer a problem child.

"I am fully convinced that we aren't anymore," Jalood told AFP. He added that in October 2023 the IOC had "decided to confirm the inclusion of our beloved Sport in the programme of the 2028 Olympic Games".

Weightlifting is a power sport where doping pays.

"The physiological risks are clear in weightlifting," said Benjamin Cohen, president of the International testing Agency (ITA).

"This is not sailing, this is not table tennis, or badminton. This is weightlifting."

Weightlifting trails only track and field – which has more competitors – in all-time failed drugs tests at the Olympics. In doping, the two have lapped the rest of the field.

"It was obviously very negative for our sport," said Jalood. "Doping in sport is an endless battle, but we decided we should fight."

Even before the Tokyo Games the IWF had made two changes.

In 2019, it delegated control of its anti-doping to the recently-created ITA, despite, Cohen said, the "reluctance" of long-time president Tamas Ajan.

"Luckily there were other officials in the board of IWF that really wanted change," Cohen said, adding that one was Jalood.

"In order to have a fully transparent programme, we needed the International testing Agency to handle the integrality of our anti-doping strategy," said Jalood.

'CLEANING TO DO'

Ajan was then deposed in 2020, after 20 years at the helm. His problems did not end there.

"There was some cleaning to do," said Cohen.

ITA investigated 146 unresolved cases from over the previous 10 years and found proof of tampering with results or covering up positives.

In June 2021, the Court of Arbitration for Sport confirmed life bans on Ajan and his former deputy Nicu Vlad.

"I guess the culture of the sport whereby athletes may have felt in the past that the only chance to win was through doping," said Cohen.

"Our mission was very clear, it was to change that and offer all athletes the possibility to take part in competitions, feeling that they can be clean and that their competitors are and that you have a chance to win without being dirty."

Weightlifting "wanted to remain on the Olympic programme," said Cohen. "We took a series of strong measures."

"We could then start to look at where the past anti-doping rule violations came from, which substance had been used, which were the officials, which were the delegations, who were the coaches and support personnel that were gravitating around the athletes," said Cohen.

"We were able to analyse them, and that produces a risk assessment. Where are you going to test, who are you going to test in priority, and when."

When North Korea returned from four years of Covid-related sporting, and testing, isolation, they became a priority beyond just weightlifting.

"ITA was the first international non-governing governmental body to set foot in North Korea after Covid," said Cohen adding that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and sports federations had told the North Koreans that ITA "absolutely need to get there and test these athletes if they take part in international competition".

"It is not acceptable to have ITA perform testing all over the world except North Korea."

Across all sports, ITA has an operation of 1 000 people at the Paris Olympics, said Cohen, "overseeing all events, all disciplines".

"Volunteers, chaperones, doping control officers, etcetera," said Cohen.