Weight Lifting, an Original Olympic Sport, May Be Dropped

Even with the game beneath scrutiny, prime lifters are nonetheless getting caught utilizing performance-enhancing medication. Shortly after Boyanka Kostova of Azerbaijan received her fourth European title in April, for instance, she examined optimistic for stanozolol, an anabolic steroid. It was the second optimistic of her profession.

One other European champion, Dmytro Chumak of Ukraine, who was thought of a medal contender on the Tokyo Video games, refused to provide a sample and tried to bribe an official from the I.T.A., which took over the testing of weight lifters from a Hungarian antidoping group. Chumak has been suspended.

The I.T.A. has banned Romania, Thailand, Egypt and Malaysia from competing in Tokyo due to doping violations. Groups from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Vietnam have been allowed just one male and one feminine competitor at this summer time’s Video games as a result of they’ve had greater than 20 optimistic circumstances between 2008 and 2021.

“You all the time get individuals in an elite sport that can cheat,” mentioned Sarah Davies, a British weight lifter who’s the chairwoman of the I.W.F.’s Athlete Fee. “I don’t know if we will utterly eliminate it. Hopefully, the big scale of doping will disappear.”

Eliminating doping will probably be troublesome as a result of the I.W.F. has been rife with conflicts. Ajan, for instance, was a member of the I.O.C. till 2010 and an honorary member till 2020. He was additionally a founding member of WADA, which gave him entry to inside details about doping.

The I.O.C. mentioned it might proceed to push for change. Equipment McConnell, the committee’s sports activities director, mentioned his group had “been very clear about what wants to alter by way of sustaining the adjustments to the antidoping laws, persevering with the governance reforms, persevering with the involvement of athletes in choice making and any substantial adjustments which might be wanted throughout the federation itself.”

Paul Massaro, who helped write the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act, a regulation signed final December that empowers U.S. prosecutors to cost American athletes and people with monetary connections to america in doping circumstances, questioned whether or not the Olympic equipment was critical about reform.