Turkey, Columbia, Mexico, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, and weightlifting powerhouse Romannia have already felt the sting of bans for the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The International Testing Agency (ITA) and the International Wegightlifting Federation (IWF) are not messing around right now with new leadership at the latter determined to the remove the stigma of corruption and a lack of oversight from the past.
Turkey, Columbia, Mexico, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, and weightlifting powerhouse Romannia have already felt the sting of bans for the upcoming Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The International Testing Agency (ITA) and the International Wegightlifting Federation (IWF) are not messing around right now with new leadership at the latter determined to the remove the stigma of corruption and a lack of oversight from the past.
In 2017, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) had given due warning to the sport that if it didn’t clean up its act and get serious about anti-doping then it would risk missing out on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Nevertheless, Tokyo 2020 will only have seven bodyweight categories for each gender out of the 10 offered by the IWF. However, we can expect Lasha Talakhadze of Georgia, the uncrowned king of the sport, to make up for any shortfalls all by himself, maybe even adding the missing weight from the lost bodyweight categories to his total (you know he just might do that).
The Chinese will probably be their usual dominant self and the women’s categories will garner as much as the men’s with even the Islamic Republic of Iran sending their first female competitor.
Weightlifting has grown as a sport in the United States with gyms opening up in every corner of the country, and an endless supply of competitive events. Sure, it has its problems, but it probably needed a kick in the butt to clean up house.
So, let’s hope we are about to enter a new, less druggy era for the sport and Lasha juggles a couple of horses for his warm up before breaking that magic 500kg total that everyone wants him to do.
