Olympics, Urso (Fipe): “Weightlifting outside the Games? We need a clear change of course”

“I believe that the IOC has every reason to ask for a change of address”. This is what the president of Fipe, the Italian weightlifting federation, Antonio Urso, affirms to Adnkronos after the Executive of the International Olympic Committee decided to include skateboarding, climbing and surfing in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics program; to respect the limit of 28 disciplines, however, boxing, weight lifting and modern pentathlon would be excluded from the Californian Games. This decision will be ratified by the 139th session of the Executive on January 31, 2022, a few days before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics. “Unfortunately, this is a very old story that began 44 years ago when the penultimate president of the International Federation, Tamas Ajan, first at the top as general secretary and from 2000 as president until last year’s resignation, transformed the Federation into a family business and this has created a whole series of distortions “, adds Urso.” In 2009 I denounced these crimes to the IOC telling everyone that we would have come out of the Games and they took me for crazy and visionary – emphasizes the president of Fipe – . The elections of the International Weightlifting Federation should have been held on December 22, but they were skipped due to governance problems, I am a candidate for the presidency: I hope to be able to make people understand what I have been denouncing since 2009. We have no chance, or we change course or it will be the last chapter of this story “.