The Pan American Weightlifting Hall of Fame initiative won accolades from several international sports organizations in its second edition, as America heads to its final destination of the season, the World Championships in Tashkent.
The universal event will be the prelude to another transcendental event, but outside the competition platform, also in the Uzbek capital: the electoral congress of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).
This forum is considered the most important in the history of that body due to the fact that its results, together with the constitutional reform, will define the future of weightlifting in the Olympic Program.
November 20 is scheduled to be the day on which the independent Eligibility Determination Panel will make public the list of candidates approved to participate in the elections to the IWF governing bodies.
The Panel has just notified the Russian Federation that none of its candidates will be allowed to participate in those elections, due to the fact that Russian weightlifters have committed six or more anti-doping rule violations over a four-year period that resulted in disqualifications.
According to Tass news agency, the president of the Russian Weightlifting Federation (RWF), Maxim Agapitov, will challenge the imposed veto before the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Agapitov was nominated by the RWF for president, vice-president and member of the IWF Executive Board.
As for the virtual Gala of the 2021 version of the Hall of Fame, a project of the Pan American Weightlifting Federation (PFLP) , it had as its centerpiece the exaltation of two legendary figures of the sport of Trinidad and Tobago, now deceased: weightlifters Rodney Adolphus Wilkes and Lennox Kilgour.
Both were the first Olympic medalists in Trinidadian sport. Wilkes (1925 - 2014) won two Olympic medals in two different Games: silver in London 1948 and bronze in Helsinki 1952, the same Olympic event where Kilgour (1927-2004) also won bronze.
Representatives from Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Colombia were distinguished in the categories of Athletes, Directors, Technical Officials and Coaches.
The Guatemalan Francisco Lee, president of the Association of Pan American Sports Confederations, invited other continental federations to imitate this initiative of the PFLP.
The president of Centro Caribe Sports and member of the International Olympic Committee, Dominican Luis Mejía Oviedo, recalled the international and Olympic successes that weightlifting has brought to Latin American countries.
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic tournament, the Dominican Republic itself won its first medals in the history of weightlifting with a silver medal and a bronze medal.
In that Olympic competition, America registered a historical record in the number of medals and in the number of countries with seven National Federations that won 11 medals, including two gold medals by the women of Ecuador and Canada.
IWF President Michael Irani and IWF Secretary General Mohammed Jalood also participated in the online ceremony and agreed that sport needed motivational ideas such as the Hall of Fame in the face of the negative effects of the pandemic.
President of the Association of National Olympic Committees of the Caribbean (CANOC), and President of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee, Brian Lewis, noted the influence of this tribute to the legendary Wilkes and Kilgour on sport in his country.
The president of the FPLP, Peruvian José Quiñones, told Around The Rings that despite the atypical nature of 2021 in terms of sports competitions, “America could have in Tashkent several options to the podium as in Tokyo”.
Due to the postponements of events due to the coronavirus pandemic, marked in the first place by the postponement of the Olympic Games, 2021 as 2022 could be the most saturated years of competitions in history.
“Normally we don’t have world championships in the Olympic year,” warned Quiñones
For the first time in the continent, two absolute Pan American championships were held in the same season. The first, postponed from 2020, was held last March in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, qualifying for Tokyo.
The second took place in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and marked the beginning of the Olympic cycle to Paris 2024. This was the first scoring tournament for the Pan American Games of Santiago de Chile 2023.
Traditionally, after the Olympic tournament many of the main figures usually take a long break, especially this time when they have had to prepare in an unprecedented way in an Olympic cycle of five years instead of four.
In this sense, several champions or medalists could desist from participating in later commitments or could come in an inadequate sporting form.
“It is difficult to make a forecast for Tashkent. I don’t know if the same people who made it to Tokyo will repeat on the podium, but America will still have several chances to medal,” reflects the executive. “America was the second continent with the most medals in the Olympic tournament... something historic”.
One of the big absentees has already reported from Asia. Hidilyn Diaz, who won the first Olympic gold medal in the history of Philippine sport at 55 kg, has just announced that she will not be attending the World Championships in Tashkent from December 7 to 17. She has preferred to reappear at the Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam in May 2022.
A new Athletes’ Commission will be elected during the World Championships as part of the IWF election process. For the first time, three athletes will be chosen to become voting members of the Executive Board.
Three days after the conclusion of the universal tournament, an election will be held on December 20 and 21 to appoint a new IWF President and Executive Board.
“Right now the Eligibility Determination Panel is reviewing all the nominations,” says Quiñones.
“The IWF does not have a relationship with the nominations and is not involved in the nomination review process at all. This is the way it should be to keep this process transparent and independent,” adds the continental executive, who is also one of the vice presidents of the IWF.
About twenty candidates from the Americas could compete for seats on IWF committees, commissions and for the executive board if the number shown in last February’s provisional list is maintained before the process was interrupted to make way for the Congress for a New Constitution.
As on that occasion, former IWF Vice President Ursula Papandrea of the United States appears to be the only American nominee for the presidency.
In 2020 Papandrea had been appointed interim president following the resignation of Hungary’s Tamas Aján, who according to a report commissioned by the IWF itself, was responsible for irregularities such as embezzlement, doping cover-ups and vote buying. In October last year, Papandrea was removed from that position by the Executive Board. She disagreed with that decision and announced that she would aspire to that position in the new elections.
The current interim president, Dr. Michael Irani, was not nominated by the British Federation to which he belongs, and is therefore not eligible to run for the presidency.
Regarding the perspective of the elections, Quiñones González commented: “The ideal is that there is a good balance between the continents, that people with capacity, experience and suitability for the position are finally elected and lead the IWF on the right path”.
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