Thailand will be the host of the 2019 World Weightlifting Championships, despite a number of positive drugs tests that look certain to mean that no Thai athletes will be allowed to participate.

The IWF announced that, following an Executive Board meeting at the Youth World Championships in Las Vegas, the World Weightlifting Championships would be held in Thailand in September as planned.

Since the start of 2019, the IWF has disclosed anti-doping test failures for seven Thai weightlifters, including all three of their gold medalists from the 2018 World Championships. Thailand, already limited to two male and two female athletes for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, now faces exclusion from the qualification process and a national suspension from the sport.

The 2019 World Weightlifting Championships will be a gold-level qualification event for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, with a 10% Robi point bonus. See our Tokyo 2020 Qualification guide for details of what this means.

It looks like at least some of the test failures were from samples collected at the 2018 World Championships, which mean they would trigger a rule that means three failed tests within the Olympic qualification period leads to a nation being completed excluded from qualification.

The failures, if upheld, will also trigger an IWF rule that three antidoping failures within a year mean that a nation is suspended from all weightlifting for tw years or even longer.