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Gordon Farquhar

Should Olympics banish weightlifting?


The revelation that 11 Bulgarian weightlifters have failed drugs tests so hard on the heels of a similar scandal involving 11 of the Greek team must call into question the sport's Olympic future.

Don't be surprised, with pressure on the programme to make space for new sports like Rugby 7s and squash, that one of the oldest, and most discredited Olympic events, will now have to fight for its place in 2012.

Behind the scenes, the International Weightlifting Federation was basically told in no uncertain terms after Sydney that it was going to have to get its act together on doping, or face the chop.

Then, three Bulgarians, (surprise surprise,) were caught and had to hand back their medals.

Weightlifter Ivan Stoitsov, who competed in Athens four years ago, is one of the 11 Bulgarians to fail a drugs test

The team was expelled from the Games, repeating the pattern begun in Seoul in 1988, where the Bulgars were ejected after two gold medals had to be returned.

Despite the best efforts of the IWF, (and they have tried, anyone at Wada will tell you that) the sport remains vulnerable to the cheats.

Such are the gains in performance to be made by increasing muscle bulk and stamina, that for many, the temptations are too great.

Post Sydney, the IWF got stuck in, instigating a huge out-of-competition testing programme: but still, in the months running up to the Athens Games, 28 weightlifters worldwide were caught cheating.

Statistically, that was 1 in 13 of those who qualified for the Games.

Don't think this is just the Bulgarians, either.

Three Indians were caught out around the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne in 2006, leading to the national federation's second 12-month suspension from competition, and a grand total of nine Australian lifters have been banned since 2006.

Search for weightlifting and drugs on the internet and you'll see for yourself.

Some of the stories are pretty lurid: one Romanian competitor was caught trying to siphon his father's urine out of a condom and into the test pot.

How low can you go?

Weightlifting's hit a new nadir, and sadly, for those who are competing clean, the organised cheating that's going on in these recent team revelations has utterly discredited the sport, exposing collusion and deception of the worst kind.

In Melbourne, I had the pleasure of watching some of the weightlifting competition, and it was a great spectacle.

Exciting, engrossing, but who knows how clean?

The paying public shouldn't have to enter the sports hall in Beijing or London and voluntarily suspend their disbelief like they were about to watch a film or a play, but that's where weightlifting's at.

Gordon Farquhar is BBC 5 Live's sports news and Olympics correspondent. Our FAQs should answer any questions you have.


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  • 1. At 9:32pm on 27 Jun 2008, snatch_pete78 wrote:

    Gordon,

    Any clean lifter will tell you that doping in weightlifting has been rampant for years. I agree the IWF has been dragging its feet on the matter (to the frustration of myself and other clean lifters) and in addition when they do catch doping lifters (such as was the case with India) they have at times accepted a fine rather than an all out ban.

    The recent European Championships provided anecdotal evidence the heavier emphasis on drug testing is paying off as lifts were down across the board. If anything the record number of positive tests recently is an indicator the drug testing is beginning to work.

    Instead of focusing simply on weightlifting I would take a more global look at doping as I think it would be rather unfortunate to ban one sport if similar incidents were occurring in other sports. In my opinion other sports have just had as high profile and damaging doping stories with athletics and cycling springing to mind. Thanou and Kenteris faking a motorbike accident to try and escape a test, Justin Gatlin 100m gold medallist, Marion Jones multiple gold medal winner, Dwain Chambers to name but a few. You also have Landis, Tour de France winner trying to worm his way out of a ban. Therefore the problems are the same in many sports.

    So yes governing bodies of various sports need to have some punishment for having so many positives and also an incentive (or threat of punishment) to keep the focus on drug testing. Removal from the Olympics I do not think is the way to go; it not only penalizes the dopers but also the clean athletes who have spent years getting to that standard. Testing has to improve both in frequency and timing (more out of competition) and it would be interesting to examine countries such as China which seem to be dominating the lower bodyweight classes. I would be extremely surprised if they were not ‘supplementing’ their diet with illegal substances given their dominance, their history in other sports with doping and as this is their Games.

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  • 2. At 12:30pm on 28 Jun 2008, Jons77 wrote:

    Personally my view is that weightlifting does still have a place at the Olympics. If you are looking to replace a sport for rugby 7's or squash, then you should be looking at sports like baseball and women's basketball.

    Even so weightlifting is a sport in decline and the consistent allegations and revelations about drug use does not help it.

    Certainly the IWF needs to take a tougher stance on this issue and maybe they can take a leaf out of the policy book from its rival sport of powerlifting.

    The IPF have taken big steps to combat the use of drugs in its sport, most recently suspending the Russian and Ukranian Federations from all International and Regional events. As Detlev Albrings on behalf of the IPF Executive Committee states

    "The IPF continues to attempt to be constructive in using sanctioning, monitoring and direct testing as methods in assisting federations in solving any doping problems in their nation. However the IPF reserves the right to employ extended suspension or even expulsion with nation federations with recurring doping problems. Not only Russia, but also other national federations are now being examined by the IPF in terms of their doping records and we will continue to take all necessary measures to eradicate drugs in Powerlifting".

    I believe that if the competing federations see that the IWF are serious about eradicating drugs in their sport, attitudes will begin to change and the lifters who cheat will cease to do so.

    By losing weightlifting the Olympics would lose part of its soul. So the thing to do is to get tough and clean it up.

    Hopefully if they are successful we will see powerlifting added in the future to augment the strength sports further at the Olympics (at least we Brits might have a chance of winning a gold medal, lol)

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  • 3. At 1:03pm on 28 Jun 2008, RobSmiley wrote:

    I couldn't begin to guess at how many competitors, in all sports, qualified for Athens... but when nearly HALF of the recorded positive drug tests are in the same sport (12 weightlifters out of a total of 26 failures during the '04 Olympics), there's going to be more than a couple of searching questions asked.

    If they can exclude true amateurs like Eddie Edwards... clean but clueless... then I don't see a sport that's incapable of keeping its' own house in order as being acceptable to the Modern Olympics

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  • 4. At 10:07pm on 28 Jun 2008, divinechloe wrote:

    I can't believe the HYPOCRITES out there. Doping has been going on for at least 40 years if not more and it will continue to flourish in years to come. If you people out there believe that the Chinese Olympics are going to be clean of doping, you are all being very nieve!!Athletes / Coaches are just going to be a little more secretive. The only reason THG was found was because it was handed to the TESTERS on a silver platter, and the head of Balco labs gave everybody up, otherwise where would the ANTI-DOPING people be?Put everybody on a level playing field and if a professional athlete was to use, then let him.WAKE UP EVERYBODY!!

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  • 5. At 11:22am on 29 Jun 2008, hockinsk wrote:

    Only the careless and less-rich athletes get caught with a banned substance in their blood during competition these days. Got enough money and it's reasonably easy to stay one step ahead of WADA testing you positive. If you dope out of competition when it is of the most benefit, the risks of getting caught are extremely low almost to the point of only being decided on bad luck of the testers turning up on the wrong day of your doping programme.

    I honestly think continuous out of competition blood profiling like has just started in cycling is the only way forward for WADA to regain credibility. i.e. you blood and urine test every athlete weekly and out of competition for the signs of blood doping, not test for the actual drug itself unless in competition. If certain blood markers deviate from normal then do all the tests to see if the athlete is positive.

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