Weightlifting: Two Nigerians join race for IWF job

By George Aluo

Just like in football where NFF president Amaju Melvin Pinnick is vying for a place in FIFA council, two Nigerian weightlifting buffs have joined the race to be on the board of world weightlifting governing body, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) in a release made available to newstap.com.ng listed the duo of Chimdi Ejiogu and Christopher Nwadei as provisional candidates for the IWF election billed for next month.

While Ejiogu, the Vice President of Nigeria Weightlifting Federation (NWF ) is gunning to be on the Executive Board of IWF, Nwadei on his part is eyeing membership of the body’s technical committee.

Meanwhile, the world weightlifting body has assured that she is doing everything possible to address all the concerns raised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ahead of the election.

The IWF in her press release stated…”The IWF Executive Board met on 5 February to address concerns expressed by the IOC and has approved a number of key actions, including the adoption of eligibility criteria aimed at ensuring high standards of governance for the forthcoming IWF elections. The meeting was attended by the Director of the IOC Sports Department Mr. Kit McConnell and an extended delegation from the IWF Athletes Commission.

“The IOC has made its concerns perfectly clear in a number of key areas, including anti-doping rules, athlete representation and the electoral process” said IWF Interim President Dr. Michael Irani. “The IWF Executive Board has acted on these points, in order to help deliver the comprehensive changes we are committed to making in an ambitious timeframe and safeguard the Olympic future of weightlifting. The actions we have taken and are taking will help protect clean weightlifters and add credibility to our anti-doping work. They will ensure the athlete’s voice is given legal backing without delay. And they will ensure a high standard of governance is applied with regard to the eligibility of candidates standing for election to the IWF’s governing bodies,” added Dr Irani.

On anti-doping rules, the IWF has requested the IWF Anti-Doping Commission and ITA to review the current rules together, with the aim of submitting a revised and independently-created version to the IWF Executive Board for approval. Consistency between the anti-doping rules and the Tokyo Olympic qualifying system will be a key priority.

On athlete representation, the IWF is working to prepare a proposal to cover the specific point of athlete representation. The proposal will be made to the forthcoming IWF Electoral Congress to ensure a sound legal footing for Athletes Commission voting on the IWF Executive Board without delay, especially in the critical period prior to and during the adoption of constitutional reform.

 On applying new and improved standards of governance to the forthcoming elections, as previously announced, the IWF Executive Board strongly supported a proposal for interim rules made by the independent Ethics and Disciplinary Commission. Eligibility checks will be applied to all candidates based on comprehensive criteria.”