Russia, China Face Ban from 2017 IWF World Championships over Doping – Reports

Russia, China as well as seven other nations reportedly look set to be banned from this year’s International Weightlifting Federation World Championships.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia and China look set to be banned from this year’s International Weightlifting Federation World Championships together with seven other nations over doping, a sports news outlet said Wednesday.

The insidethegames website said a report on alleged doping found in the samples of heavy lifters from nine successful weightlifting nations would be presented to the IWF’s executive board on September 30 and October 1.

The doping accusations are linked to retests of samples taken from athletes during the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games. The ban will be up to one year, the outlet said.

China has been the world’s weightlifting champion for two decades and was only edged into second place by Russia in 2001. Other nations on the suspension list are likely to be Kazakhstan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, and Turkey.

Each of the nine countries are reported to have had three to ten positives in the retests – a total of 49 athletes, including 30 medal winners. The outlet said they would be able to shorten the ban term after the IWF tournament by signing up to strict conditions.