The following information comes from Inside The Games.
“Two 14-year-olds are among seven Egyptian weightlifters who tested positive for steroids at the African Youth and Junior Championships. Egypt were forced to withdraw from the Junior World Championships as a result.
The IWF declined to comment on the Egypt cases as they are not yet closed.
Under World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) guidelines five of the names cannot be released, the sport’s governing body said, because they were minors at the time of testing.
The Egyptians gave the seven names to Reuters.
Two were 14 at the time the samples were taken, three more were teenagers and the other two, who have been named as Ahmed Emad Gouda and Alla Yasser Zaki, were 20.
The latter two have won gold at the African Junior Championships, with Gouda being victorious in the men’s 77 kilograms and Zaki in the women’s 75kg.
“There is a conspiracy against the Egyptian Federation,” Mahmoud Mahjoub, President of the Egyptian Weightlifting Federation and an Executive Board member of the African Federation and the IWF, told Reuters.
Egypt’s National Anti-Doping Committee revealed an internal investigation had concluded that an Egyptian dessert, consumed by the team at the Championships, may have been tainted deliberately by an athlete, coach or official who was in dispute with the Federation.
If these explanations are not deemed acceptable, Egyptian officials, athletes or the entire Federation could face a lengthy ban.
The Federation also faces a fine of $250,000 (£192,000/€222,000).”
THE FUTURE OF WEIGHTLIFTING
“Last month, Tamás Aján spoke of the governing body taking a tougher stance against doping when he was re-elected President of the IWF.
When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) retested samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games 49 weightlifters came up positive, 30 of them medallists.
Last week Thomas Bach, President of the IOC, gave the sport six months to produce a credible programme to combat cheating.
“The IWF has until December 2017 to deliver a satisfactory report to the IOC on how they will address the massive doping problem this sport is facing,” Bach said.
He warned the report was a condition for weightlifting remaining on the Olympic programme for the 2024 Games.
Nine nations who had three or more positives in the IOC’s retests from 2008 and 2012 are due to be suspended by the IWF.
The nine nations are Kazakhstan and Russia with 10 positives each, Belarus seven, Azerbaijan five, Armenia four and China, Moldova, Turkey and Ukraine three each.”
Image Sources
- Weightlifter: Oorka