ATR First: Heavy Lifting for Acting Weightlifting Chief

(ATR) An independent investigator into possible scandal at the International Weightlifting Federation should be named this week Acting President Ursula Papandrea tells Around the Rings.

Papandrea was chosen a week ago to lead the IWF on an interim basis while an inquiry into allegations involving President Tamas Ajan is carried out.

Ajan, 81, has been with the IWF for a half century, president since 2000. Papandrea, 51, competed in the sport for three decades and was until this month the president of USA Weightlifting. She was serving as a vice president of the IWF when she was selected by the board Jan. 22 to take over from Ajan for a 90 day period.

Ajan is spotlighted in a documentary from German TV channel ARD that attacks the federation for it’s profligate doping problems. The allegations also include charges that until 2010, Ajan was the sole signatory on bank accounts that received money for the IWF from the IOC.

"We still don’t have evidence in our hands. But what we do have are claims by others that there is evidence. If that is the case this changes what has been rumor and suspicion into something that must be looked at," Papandrea tells ATR as she prepared to embark on a month of IWF travel from her home in Texas.

Independent Inquiry to Form This Week

Along with her new title of Acting President, Papandrea leads a three-member Oversight and Integrity Commission (OIC) that was also named during the 13 hour board meeting held in Doha, Qatar.

"That was a unanimous position that we look at him using an independent investigation. That was a one point on which we all agreed," she says.

She says that commission will choose a finalist this week to recommend as an independent investigator. Papandrea says the firms which are being considered are among the major accounting/auditing firms in the world.

"We are in a position where we need to get answers to these questions. It’s no longer some sort of rumor," she says.

Papandrea says the inquiry is to be completed within the 90 days of her appointment as acting president. The OIC will have no involvement other than to receive the report once it is complete.

The Acting President’s Role

Papandrea says she’ll be in Budapest at the end of this week where she’ll size up her role as acting president. It’s the first time the Federation has been led by someone with that title. Papandrea is also the first woman to hold the presidential title for the federation.

For the 90-day period Papandrea will handle public duties of the presidency as well as provide oversight to the Budapest operations. In March she will preside over a meeting of the Executive Board in Bucharest, Romania.

What happens after the 90 days elapse isn’t certain, she says.

"At that point there will be some evaluation. We need to get to the 90 day period to get to know what steps are to be taken next. I was given basically 90 days to compose, to work with my commission, with the expectation that we will have some reporting in the 90 days that will give us information

"There is nothing to say that at 90 days everything ends. We need to get to the 90 day date to know what steps we need to take next," says Papandrea.

"We have a constitution and bylaws which are in serious need of updating to bring governance into the modern age in which term limits are the norm," she says about changes she believes are needed at the IWF.

Term Limits, Sanctions Needed

She contends that years at the helm of a federation is not the path to good governance.

"To me it’s the basic foundation for these problems. You lose accountability when you don’t have requirements that the leadership responds to members of the board as well as the member federations," she says.

"That’s just my point of view on accountability and organization. The ability to have transparency, and ask questions without questioning the leadership," she says.

Papandrea says her experience helping to turn around the reputation of US Weightlifting will be put to good use for the mission ahead at the IWF. She started as a board member of the national federation in 2009 before becoming president, a post from which she resigned this month upon becoming acting IWF president. The conflict of interest rules of US Weightlifting required her to do so.

"My goal at US Weightlifting was to restore credibility to the sport. We had lost all credibility with the USOC and they threatened to decertify us in 2008. My efforts were to establish a trustworthy body ro restore credibility with the US Olympic Committee and I think we’ve done that," she says.

Now she has a similar mission with IWF and the IOC.

"Absolutely. When I stepped on the board I wanted to make sure that clean sport was the objective. There’s a difference between not having positives and having clean sport. My goal was to have clean sport. Clean sport means you might get a slew of positives before you get there.

"I understand that you got to clean house. And so that means you’re going to have to find and test the people from the countries causing the most problems. I’m perfectly fine with suspending national federations until they can get it together so that they are not affecting our reputation on whole. But I think we have to send a very clear message that if you’re not going to follow the rule, you’ll have to go," she says.

Saving the Sport, Clean Athletes

Papandrea says that the real victims of doping in weightlifting are the clean athletes who have given up the sport rather than compete against dirty athletes. She says she knows from personal experience.

"I know we’ve lost thousands. The first time I went to a world championships in Bulgaria my sense when I got there is that there were more women doping than were not. I don’t have proof of that but that was my sense, that was my own opinion as I looked around and engaged. It wasn’t just the results were different there were clear side effects of doping on display. We see that to this day. And I saw it through the decade. It is incredibly frustrating for the athletes and I personally understand that," Papandrea says.

The acting federation president says that her message for clean weightlifters is that there are people like her ready to fight for ethical and fair sport.

"What I could say to the athletes right now is that we are in the best position we have ever been in to give them the opportunity to step on the Olympic stage, at a world stage and know how they got there.

"We have come to the brink two times now and I don’t know what our position now is with the IOC. It is hard for me to imagine that they can even look past the scandals to the people on the other side who are working hard to make sure the sport is going successfully," she says.

"We’re in the worst place we’ve ever been and we have an opportunity to change," Papandrea says.

Reported by Ed Hula.