The International Weightlifting Federation has updated the 2014/2015 World Championship Olympic Rankings. This was done to remove athletes whom have been confirmed to have tested positive for doping. This is not the final list as the appeal process has yet to be finished plus Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia could be banned depending on the results of the retesting of 2008 and 2012 Olympic samples.
For the women’s quotas only one major change was done Belarus fell in the rankings where they lost a quota while the Ukraine has moved up to gain a quota. Overall Ukraine will now send four athletes while Belarus will only send three.
The men’s quotas are a bit complicated. Overall Thailand and Moldova have swapped places, resulting in quota changes. Thailand will now send five while Moldova would have initially sent four, but with sanctions due to doping they will now only send two. The big change was Azerbaijan completely falling out of the rankings meaning it fully loses three quotas (in addition to the one quota it already lost due to multiple doping offenses). Overall this results with France moving up from three quotas to four quotas while Japan will now send three athletes.
With Japan now qualifying through the World Olympic Rankings its results from the Asian Championship are now removed. After recalculating Saudi Arabia will now send one athlete. Likewise Azerbaijan’s results at the European Championship will now count. No changes were made. Azerbaijan, however, would have qualified an athlete through the individual rankings, but since they will lose one quota due to multiple doping offenses Azerbaijan will not send an athlete in weightlifting.
As previously said there will be an appeal process plus there is the possibility of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia from being completely banned. Also the IWF has not released the final results from the continental championships meaning there could be more changes due to the result of doping.
Net Quotas by Nations
- Japan – 2
- France – 1
- Saudi Arabia – 1
- Thailand – 1
- Ukraine – 1
- Belarus – -1
- Moldova – -1
- Azerbaijan – -3
References
- IWF. Rio 2016 Olympic Games Qualification Men’s Team Classification 2014 & 2015 IWF World Championships. Access on June 27 2016.
- IWF. Rio 2016 Olympic Games Qualification Women’s Team Classification 2014 & 2015 IWF World Championships. Access on June 27 2016.
Road to the Olympics 