20 July 2016

IWF reports three positives from Pan American Championships

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has reported three more adverse analytical findings (AAFs), understood to have occurred at the Pan-American Championships, which took place in Colombia in June. It will now analyse the cases in order to determine if an anti-doping rule violation (ADRV) has occurred.

Genesis Rodriguez of Venezuela, who took second place in the 53kg category at the Championships, returned an AAF for isometheptene, a drug used to treat migraines but classed as a specified stimulant by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) under section S6.b of the 2016 Prohibited List. Rodriguez is perhaps best known for collapsing whist competing at the 2015 Toronto Pan American Games, where she took a silver medal in the 53kg category.

Malvina Soledad Veron of Argentina returned an AAF for methenolone metabolites. Methenolone is a dihydrotestosterone (DHT)-based anabolic steroid prohibited under the same section of WADA’s Prohibited List. Veron took 11th place in the 58kg category in Colombia, and sixth place in the 53kg category at the 2011 Pan American Games.

Moises Cartagena of Puerto Rico returned an AAF for dehydrochlormethyltestosterone metabolites. Dehydrochlormethyltestosterone is an anabolic agent (steroid) prohibited under section S1.1 of the Prohibited List. Cartagena took tenth place in the 94kg category in Colombia, and sixth place at the 2011 Pan American Games in the 94kg category.

The IWF noted that the findings of WADA’s IP Report implicated weightlifting, however said that although it had organised four events during the past four years in Russia, none of the samples from those events were analysed by the Moscow laboratory. These events were:

• 2013 IWF GP – 3rd President’s Cup – Moscow;
• 2014 IWF Junior World Championships – Kazan; IWF GP – 4th President’s Cup – Noyabrsk
• 2015 IWF GP – 5th President’s Cup – Grozny
• 2016 IWF GP – 6th President’s Cup – Kazan

The IWF Executive Board has also decided that national federations that are confirmed to have produced three or more anti-doping rule violations (ARDVs) during the combined re-analysis of samples taken at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics, will be suspended for one year. The IWF has already added Russia and Kazakhstan to Bulgaria as countries which will be banned from sending any weightlifters to Rio, after the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) re-analysis identified seven weightlifting positives from the 2008 Games and ten from the 2012 Games.

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