Meanwhile in Russia …

European weightlifting federation president Antonio Urso (Italy) is currently on a visit in Russia where he took part in a press conference titled “Weightlifting: problems and solutions”.

Also taking part were president of the Russian WL federation Maxim Agapitov and the new head coaches Nikolai Kolesnikov and Pavel Kuznetsov.

Urso announced last year that he will run for presidency of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).

The IWF Electoral Congress will be held in Bangkok on 29-30th May. That is when Tamas Ajan’s 4th four-year term ends. He has held the position since 2001. Urso has been EWF President since 2008.

Today Urso announced: “My goal is to completely change the system, that is to establish individual quotas for the Olympics as opposed to team quotas. (via)

We have an individual sport, but athletes qualify for the games via the team quota rather than individual […]

They also talked about the possibility of hosting the 2019 European championships in Russia. (via)

Furthermore he also wants to have universal anti doping standards (independent organisations doing the testing in each country).

The problem is not whether the Russian team will be at the next Olympics, but whether there will be weightlifting at all. (via)

Sounds like a good plan to me. What do you think?

What are the are the reasons team quotas were chosen to begin with?