Update: After Albania was cancelled, Europeans 2018 are now set to be held in Bucharest, Romania (via).

Update 08.02.2018: Bucharest is now confirmed by the EWF. See regulation here, Entry List.

Dates: 26.03 – 01.04.2018.

(Read the Updates Below)

Meanwhile in Weightlifting News …

Europeans 2018 are looking for a new host country.

Timeline

First it was scheduled to be held it in Turkey, but due to the many doping positives Turkey wouldn’t have been able to participate, which would look kind of bad.

So it was decided that Tirana, Albania would host it.

But the latest news (scroll down) is that Executive Board of the Albanian weightlifting federation resigned because of doping problem and the Albanian WF cannot organize next Senior EWC at the end of March.

Update 12.10.2017:

I received the news that this morning Antonio Urso (European Weightlifting Federation president) has sent an email to all EWF member federations saying that as of “today nobody take any decision to postpone the European Senior Championships 2018. Unfortunately this is fake news coming from Russian press”.

Insights: According to another EWF Board member:

The Russians proposed postponing the Euros at the EWF Board meeting at the congress in Kosovo, but most member Federations are quite enraged by the proposal (some publicly, many privately).

The European Championships has always been held at this time of year, and member federations have budgets and training plans well in place at this point.

Many member federations of the EWF also plan their National Championships and domestic competition season around the European Championships.

Member Federations have expressed their disquiet at the reports in the Russian media in writing and in person to the EWF Executive – no-one wants to let the banned nations compete at the 2018 Europeans.

The EWF is very keen to see a different list of nations on the medal podium – letting nations with entire teams banned compete by changing the date of the competition is bad for the sport

The BIG problem for the EWF – Turkey is the listed host venue, and they obviously can’t hold the competition there, but finding a venue for the European Championships is always hard, even harder at short notice

The EWF has no real sponsors, and host nations have considerable expenses for hosting a competition like this. Most countries won’t get financial assistance from their governments to host a competition like this, because weightlifting is such a tiny sport in most countries.

The actual decision for the venue will come at the EWF Board meeting held in Albania in conjunction with the European Junior & U23 Championships

The most likely outcomes of the EWF board meeting this weekend:

Turkey will almost certainly not host the 2018 European Senior Championships ;

; the Russians will almost certainly not get their way and it will go ahead at the end of March/start of April ;

; a possible host venue which will be popular with everyone but Russia is Georgia, who are open to hosting the competition again. They put in a proposal to host it this morning.

Update 13.10.2017:

Halmstad, Sweden is in the talks now.

Update 30.10.2017:

Looks like it’s going to be Tirana, Albania again! (via)

Update 22.01.2018:

Here we go again… The EWF sent out an email saying:

Unfortunately Executive Board of Albanian WF resigned because of doping problem and the Albanian WF cannot organize next Senior EWC at the end of March. It is unexpected and very serious problem for EWF and EWF member federations. All EWF EB members were informed last week. For solution, EWF has two options. One of them is to find new host country and second option is to postpone the organization in order to give more time to new host country for preparations. Our first and foremost priority is to organize the competition on time decided before as 26th March-1st April 2018. Now EWF negotiates with some member federations to decide new host country.

EWF continues to inform you about the latest developments. Thank you very much for your understanding. Best Regards

Update 29.01.2018

Romanian News Sites are reporting that Euros 2018 will be held in Bucharest!

Update 08.02.2018:

Bucharest is now confirmed by the EWF.

Same dates. 26.03 – 01.04