Weightlifting under threat

OLYMPIC sport weightlifting has been under threat from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for many years now.

Some improvements were implemented in the recent years to avoid the IOC drastic move to eliminate the sport from the Olympic calendar, but the problem lingered on, especially after International Weightlifting Federation President Tamas Ajan resigned last year after a barrage of white papers came out in European news reports.

As usual, alleged doping and corruption reared their ugly heads when further investigations were scattered all over as a new IWF election was calendared this month, March 25 to 28, in Istanbul, Turkey.

This week, the IWF Executive Board met and adhered to the request of the IOC to reschedule the Congress calling for a new revised Constitution, giving two votes to the Athletes Commission, which has been complaining of being disrespected in recent meetings and scheduling the election only under a new revised constitution.

So, now we shall wait for the new schedule of our IWF Constitutional Congress to be followed by the election.

This writer was a member of the IWF Executive Board for four years when elected as the first Filipino to be president of the Asian Weightlifting Federation several years ago when the IWF then was enjoying its glorious years.

Let me make it clear. This sport has no problem for the Tokyo Olympic Games. The one in jeopardy now is the next Paris Olympic Games 2024.

But with this recent cooperation and submission to the two requests of the IOC shown by the IWF, guess we can take a breather for now.

Unlike the sport of boxing, we look forward to better years ahead. We owe it to our athletes.

Nightmare of fanatics

OMG. What a blast. Felt like Kobe’s deadly crash came back again.

Waking up in the early morning, we couldn’t believe from news reports that Tiger survived another horrible car crash.

Thank God he’s still alive. I don’t care if he doesn’t win another Masters ever again. Though I pray for it as his admiring doctors say he can be back again.

Unlike Mamba, this is his third accident. It’s a blessing that he didn’t bring along his prodigy and super talented son Charlie on this fast and furious trek.

And for him to walk again. He could have lost his legs if not for the miraculous save. For us fanatics, let’s hope he’ll do another Ben Hogan magic.

Sixteen months after the legendary Ben suffered in a car crash, he came back to win the Masters again. There’s only one Houdini on the golf course these days and his name is Tiger Woods. Long live the Iron King!