Between March 10 and 12, in Halmstad, Sweden, a reference town for the weightlifting movement in Europe and the world, being the city where the headquarters of the most famous weightlifting bars are located, took place the launch of the IWF and EWF pilot program for coaches licensing, in front of over 70 delegates, technicians and officials of EWF Member Federations.
The work sessions included presentations by the members of the EWF and IWF Technical Committees, an extremely important presentation of the International Testing Agency for Anti-Doping education, simulations of completing specific courses on the ADEL platform and other interventions with technical guidance.
This important step for the entire weightlifting family is yet another confirmation of the determination of the leaderships of the IWF, EWF and National Federations to protect the integrity of our sport and ensure its permanence in the Olympic program.
The EWF President and General Secretary announced, from the very beginning, their willingness to launch this pilot program in Europe and to be a model for other continents to follow. With the support of Eleiko, the trusted partner of the European federation for many years, this launch could be organized almost in record time.
Antonio Conflitii, EWF President, welcomed the quick and favorable reaction of the EWF Member Federations to implement this program as soon as possible: “Congratulations to all the EWF National Federations for the very positive reaction to this project. We all understood how important it is to have professional data bases with the specialists involved in weightlifting in order to be able to train and perfect them in the spirit of clean sport and Fair Play. This project will be a success, it will change mentalities and help everyone’s involvement in keeping the sport in the Olympic Games program.”
“It is very nice to see such a consensus from all delegations of Europe. This means that we really want to continue implementing the good measures we have started”, said Dr. Mihajlovic EWF General Secretary.
A good part of the program was coordinated by the head of the EWF Coaching and Research Committee, Mr. Colin Buckley together with his IWF counterpart, Mr. Petr Kroll and colleagues from the IWF and EWF committees and commissions involved in the project.
“This is a very big step for National Federations to say yes, we take responsibility, yes we play our part in taking our sport in a new direction”, stated the Chairman.
The host of the seminar, the Eleiko barbell company, expressed, through its representatives, its openness to support weightlifting projects, anticipating that they will come up with proposals for the development of weightlifting at the youth level and not only.
Erik Blomberg CEO of Eliko stated: “Eleiko is very happy to have hosted the pilot launch of the IWF International Coach Licence scheme in partnership with both IWF and EWF. We think this is a very important step on the international federation’s progressive journey of strengthening its governance and overall administration. Coaches in particular have a key role when building an international sports federation with high competence and clear values with regards to coaching, transparency and anti-doping. This IWF program sets the federation on a very positive path.”
It should be mentioned that this activity was also the first in which Portugal participated, after returning to the status of EWF Member Federation, recently.