Takano Athletics

Just as Sydney Olympics women’s weightlifting bronze medalist and 1994 World Champion Karnam Malleswari was lambasting the modern generation of Indian weightlifters for the current dope testing debacle that threatens to remove Indian lifting from the world stage, another doping positive was announced.  This brings the total to 7 in a two month period and very much threatens the future of the sport in India.

58 Kg. liftger Seepana Yamini was announced to have failed a drug test administered in August by the National Anti-Doping Agency.  She had been scheduled to be part of a 30 member contingent that would be representing India in the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships scheduled to begin today in Penang, Malaysia.  No information was provided as to which drug(s) had been found in her sample.

The veteran champion Malleswari who is India’s greatest lifter ever was deeply disturbed that the sport is being ruined by the young lifters who are apparently disregarding the threats of suspension for both themselves and the federation from international competition.  She absolved former Soviet coach Leonid Taranenko of the blame for introducing doping strategies to India weightlifting, and instead faulted the administration of Indian Weightlifting Federation secretary Balbir Singh for lax enforcement standards.

Since a formal two year ban will have to go through the adjudication process of the International Weightlifting Federation, the Indians are still apparently free to participate in the Commonealth Championships.  This will be the first time they will participate since 2005.  In 2006, there was no Commonwealth Championships since the Commonwealth Games were being held in Melbourne.  In 2007 they were on suspension because of doping positives in 2006, and in 2008 visa problems kept the team from catching the bus to the championships in Cyprus.

A two-year suspension would be the third two-year suspension for the Indian federation since 2000, a record unmatched by any other national governing body.

Every time that there is a spate of doping positives within the sport there is usually an outcry for an elimination of that sport.  Elimination of a sport from the Olympic Games would result in a loss of funding for that sport from the government of every nation in the world that is a member of the International Weightlifting Federation (except the United States).  At my last count there were over 180 member nations.  This is close to the membership of the IOC which is slightly over 200.  Such a loss of global funding and support would certainly deal the sport a crippling blow that would reduce its cachet significantly.

What has prevented the sport from being eliminated after similar dope testing problems in Caracas (Pan American Games) in 1983 and Seoul (Olympic Games) in 1988, was the size of the membership of the IWF, the influence of the leadership of Tamas Ajan, the fact that weightlifting was one of the charter sports of the modern Olympic movement (the fortius part?), and that the IWF is one of the oldest governing bodies for sport in the world with the charter dating back to 1905.  Weightlifting is quite simply a well established sport that is appreciated by a significant portion of the world’s influential sports followers.

It does not however make it any easier to conduct the sport, or to attract talented athletes to the sport if there is an aura of drug usage surrounding it.  I remember after the Caracas debacle that many uninformed people were coming into commercial gyms asking about purchasing steroids with the reasoning that drugs were what was keeping them from making progress.  It seemed to be one of those “Now I get it” moments for many lay persons unfamiliar with the processes of athletic development.  The aura is also going to make parents think twice about committing their children to weightlifting programs.

Instead of informing people about the benefits of the Olympic lifts and the attraction of the sport, we will be committed to having to fight off the misinformation that arises from a doping scandal.  The best thing that we have in our favor at the moment is that India is NOT one of the top weightlifting nations on Earth.  After the dope testing caught both the Bulgarians and the Greeks, two of the world’s elite programs, the sport is not in need of another black eye.  Weightlifting as a sport and activity has provided the sports world with a wealth of knowledge on the processes for training the human body for speed/strength events.  It needs to survive and above all needs not to be discarded because of the actions of some indiscreet national governing bodies.