U.S. Saves 2017 Weightlifting World Champs

(ATR) Anaheim, California is chosen to host the 2017 Weightlifting World Championships after Penang, Malaysia withdraws.

The executive board of the International Weightlifting Federation made the switch Monday in Penang, where the Youth World Championships are taking place this week.

The IWF says that Penang organizers said they had "encountered difficulties", forcing the Malaysian city to resign. An official with the IWF says the combination of the youth championships and the senior championships has proved too much to handle financially for Penang.

The move means the second time in two years for the U.S. , which hosted the 2015 IWF world champs in Houston.

Location for the 2017 event will be the Anaheim Convention Center, venue for wrestling in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

It’s not immediately known if Anaheim presented any issues as a result of the Los Angeles bid for the 2024 Olympics. As a rule, bidding cities are not allowed to enter bids for Olympic sports events that would take place before the IOC votes on a host city.

Anaheim, despite its location near Los Angeles, is not L.A., so that precludes one aspect of the rule. The date of the 2017 event is in November, two months after the IOC votes next Sept. 13 on a 2024 host city. That’s well beyond the IOC date restriction, another exception that helps make Anaheim possible.

The 2015 world champs were regarded as a successful event, drawing nearly 700 lifters from 130 countries. While only two years will elapse between the Houston and Anaheim championships, the previous weightlifting world championship in the U.S. happened 40 years prior to 2015.

Written by Ed Hula.

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