By Amaechi Agbo

No fewer than 13 weightlifters have been provisionally suspended weightlifting ahead of the World Weightlifting Championship in Uzbekistan following doping violations

The International Weightlifting Federation, IWF announced last week through International Testing Agency, ITA, that the 13 athletes who were found to have violated the anti-doping rules during 2012 said the affected lifters have been suspended pending the resolution not the analyses.

The International Testing Agency (ITA), leading an independent anti-doping program for the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), detected anti-doping rule violations against 13 Weightlifters after the re-analysis of samples collected in 2012.

In the scope of the work carried out by the ITA on the series of allegations of mishandling of anti-doping matters by the International Weightlifting Federation (“IWF”) over the 2009-2019 period, the ITA ordered further analysis on samples provided by weightlifters during the 2012 IWF European Championships in Antalya, Turkey, held in April 2012.

The report released on Thursday last week shows that “The samples had initially been reported as “negative” back in 2012, but thanks to the improvements in the detection methods, the ITA requested their re-analysis in 2021 which identified several banned anabolic steroids. The further analyses were conducted by the WADA-accredited laboratory of Cologne.

The ITA can report that it has notified 13 weightlifters of adverse analytical findings for one or multiple prohibited anabolic steroids detected in their respective samples provided in April 2012:

Hysen Pulaku (Albania)
Hanna Batsiushka (Belarus)
Dimitris Minasidis (Cyprus)
Irakli Turmanidze (Georgia)
Rauli Tsirekidze (Georgia)
Cristina Iovu (Moldova)
Florin Ionut Croitoru (Romania)
Razvan Constantin Martin (Romania)
Oxana Slivenko (Russia)
Gokhan Kilic (Turkey)
Bunyami Sezer (Turkey)
Hatice Yilmaz (Turkey)
Fatih Baydar (Turkey)

The weightlifters have been provisionally suspended until the resolution of the affair.

The weightlifters have the right to ask for their respective B-sample analysis.

Pursuant to the IWF’s delegation of its anti-doping program to the ITA, the prosecution of these cases is being handled entirely by the ITA. Given that the cases are underway, there will be no further comments during the ongoing proceedings.

Tje World Weightlifting Championship will commence from December 7 through 17, 2021.