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Officials cry 'ouch' as weightlifting drops bar on its foot
SYDNEY, Sept 21 (AFP) - Weightlifting, a huge embarrassment to the Olympics in the past, has dropped the bar on its collective foot again at the Sydney Games with drug positives, hunger strikes, bizarre rules and transfer fees placing a dark cloud over the sport. The International Weightlifting Federation's (IWF) strict anti-doping policy, which saw them carry out blanket pre-Games testing on all 257 competitors, has not put the frighteners on the muscled ranks of athletes tempted by rewards of cash, cars and condominiums for Olympic gold. Two Romanian lifters and a Norwegian were kicked out before the Games after failing dope tests and former Olympic gold medallist Ivan Ivanov of Bulgaria was stripped of his silver medal in the 56kg division after testing positive for a diuretic. "This is nothing short of a disaster for the sport," said Sam Coffa, vice-president of the IWF. "Weightlifting has been hurt enormously by these cases - this is very damaging to the reputation of our sport." Tamas Ajan, the general secretary of the IWF who has led the sport's fight against drugs and now sits on the the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said that it was difficult to finger the drug suppliers. "We have tried to investigate who gave these drugs to the athletes - coach, doctor or some other competitor. We have not been successful - it is a fog," he said. Ajan expressed confidence that weightlifting would keep its place in the Olympic programme despite the drug scandals. "I feel there is no danger of weightlifting being dropped from the Olympic programme because of this. A statement of that possibility has been made in the past but we have a very strict anti doping policy in place now," he said. Weightlifting's Olympic future came into doubt after the 1988 Seoul Olympics when five lifters, including Bulgarian gold medallists Mitko Grablev and Angel Genchev, were unmasked as drug cheats. IOC vice-president Dick Pound, one of those said to have reservations about allowing weightlifting to continue in the Games after the Seoul scandal, had a first hand look at the Sydney Olympic competition on Tuesday, the evening before Ivanov's dope positive was revealed. In what was viewed at the time as a tacit vote of confidence to the sport, he watched China's Chen Xiaomin win the women's 63kg class but was not involved in the medal presentation ceremony. Pound made no official comment on the weightlifting issue but other IOC officials have indicated that the sport's Olympic future is safe at the moment. While the Ivanov case is the most damaging to weightlifting, the saga of Romanian lifters Traian Ciharean and Andre Mateas has played out like a television soap opera. The duo tested positive for anabolic steroid use, triggering a "three strikes and you are out" rule which should have seen the whole Romanian squad barred from competing, and then went on a campaign to clear their names. Ciharean disappeared from the Athletes Village and re-emerged in the office of a Sydney lawyer looking for advice while Mateas carried out his threat to go on hunger strike. As they protested their innocence, the 'clean' Romanian lifters were allowed back into the Games after their Olympic Committee paid a fine of 50,000 US dollars. Ajan said that this back door route into the Games would be an issue at the IWF Congress in December. "Maybe we will have to look at this again at the Congress," he said. "It could be that we suspend the federation outright, with no chance to pay a fine, if there are three drug positives in one year or find another solution." The drug controversy has overshadowed the weightlifting competition and camouflaged another potentially damaging issue within the sport. The records will show that the first three men's Olympic titles went to Turkey, Croatia and Bulgaria whereas all three winners were born, and learned the lifting art, in Bulgaria. Halil Mutlu, the gold medallist at 56kg, was born into the ethnic Turkish minority in Bulgaria before switching allegiance to Turkey while 62kg winner Nikolay Pechalov settled in Croatia after befriending tennis star Goran Ivanisevic at the Barcelona Olympics. Pechalov told a press conference that he was cleared to represent Croatia after their weightlifting federation paid the Bulgarian authorities US 50,000 dollars. Galabin Boevski won gold in the 69kg class competing for his native Bulgaria and was assured during the post event press conference that the weightlifting authorities would fulfil their promise of gifting him a Mercedes car if he was successful. The story of three times Olympic gold medallist Naim Suleymanoglu's flee from persecution in Bulgaria and the reported US 1 million dollars which changed hands between the Turkish and Bulgarian Governments to allow him to compete in the 1988 Seoul Olympics has passed into sports folklore. It has also been widely reported that Qatar paid a large cash sum to import eight star lifters from Bulgaria, several of whom will compete for the Gulf state under Arab names in the Sydney Olympics.
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