National team leaders validate final entries for the Olympic weightlifting competition

While the South Paris Arena venue is getting ready to welcome the weightlifting competition from Wednesday (this was also the site hosting the handball games until yesterday), the national team leaders gathered today for the Final Verification Entries and the Technical Meeting. Under the leadership of the IWF President Mohammed Jalood, the meetings were also conducted by the Paris 2024 IWF Technical Delegates Matthew Curtain (IWF Executive Board Member) and Moira Lassen, the Chair of the IWF Technical Committee and EB Member Sam Coffa, the IWF CEO Achilleas Tsogas, the IWF Competition Manager Matyas Lencser, and the Paris 2024 Weightlifting Sports Manager Jacqueline White.

“These are my first Games as the IWF President and I am immensely happy to see so many nations represented here in Paris! There are exactly 58 countries taking part in the competition, which I am sure will be very successful,” considered Mr Jalood when opening the meetings. “Our International Federation underwent many positive changes in recent years, and the biggest effort was to make it a clean and drug-free sport. Thanks to a very fruitful co-operation with the International Testing Agency, we are getting excellent results and we hope to have, like in Tokyo three years, zero positive doping cases,” added the IWF President. “In order to consolidate our reputation, we must continue competing on a clean and fair manner!” concluded the IWF President.

IWF President Mohammed Jalood

The meeting was the last opportunity for the participating delegations to update the entry totals of their respective qualified athletes, as well as an occasion to validate the athletes’ headshot photos for the sports presentation of the weightlifting events.

“We are ready and excited to be here! Paris 2024 marks the beginning of the work we did as a weightlifting family. We are proud of this spirit of unity and, as a family, we are here to help each other. Your support, together with the IWF’s hard work, is therefore essential to achieve success!” considered Matthew Curtain.

“We lived a very challenging Olympic cycle, after the COVID limitations, This is why we admire your perseverance and devotion to be in a great shape and to brilliantly qualify for these Olympics. Congratulations and good Games to all of you!”  stated Moira Lassen.

On a more technical note, Jacqueline White briefed all delegations about the various procedures, flows and obligations of the participating teams during the competition, to be staged from August 7-11. “We had a very good collaboration with the IWF throughout all this process and we are here to help you in whatever you may need,” confessed the Paris 2024 Weightlifting Sports Manager.

IWF Communications