More than half of the 377 weightlifters at the world championships that begin on Tuesday in the U.S. "will be drug tested as the sport begins a new chapter to try to retain its Olympic status" after decisions taken by the governing Int'l Weightlifting Federation, according to Brian Oliver of REUTERS. By the time of the last lift on Dec. 5 at the event in Anaheim, Calif., the IOC "will have begun deliberations on whether weightlifting should feature at the Paris 2024 Games." IWF President Tamas Ajan said, "We accept that in the past the incidence of doping in weightlifting has been too high." The IWF "adopted a hardline approach to doping" at an exec board meeting. It will target "less than a dozen high-risk countries where there is an entrenched culture of doping that goes beyond weightlifting." The countries involved "were not named." Of the 49 weightlifting positives in the retesting of samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympics -- more than any other sport -- 43 "were from nations formerly part of the Soviet Union." Under new rules approved by the IWF on Saturday, countries will face bans of up to four years "if they do not fulfil their anti-doping responsibilities," which would keep them out of the Olympics. A new Olympic qualifying system will "also require athletes to compete more often than some do now" (REUTERS, 11/26).
