I have some good news today to share with you. It's not about doping, cheating or some injustice committed to or by people.
Between 06-14 December 2019 is taking place the EWF U15 & Youth Weightlifting Championships in Eilat, Israel. I read it in the news that Romania got ten medals, eight of which are gold and two bronze medals.
Ioana Mădălina Miron won three gold medalt at the 40 kg category, secion Under-15. Ramona Anuşca also got three gold medals at the 45 kg category, U15. Alondra Iacob got a gold medal , so did Leonard Sandu.
I can't say I love weightlifting, I find it too rough and prefer not to watch it but still was happy to read about these teenagers winning so many gold medals at a Championship. This means there's a young generation, basically the next generation that is going to take the place of the weightlifters of today. I believe it's never too early to start preparing the next generation.
Romania has had some problems in the past, some doping cases when weightlifters have lost their medals but I haven't heard anything lately. That doesn't necessarily mean there are no doping cases, although I hope it does.
At this point of writing I said let's run a search to see if there were doping cases in Romanian weightlifting and I'm shocked of what I've just read!
The International Weightlifting Federation has established that the qualification system for the 2020 Olympics will be conditioned by how clean and fair a national federation is. Thus, the maximum number of athletes that a National Olympic Committee can qualify for at the Olympic Games is 8 (4 men + 4 women). If a National Olympic Committee has between 10 and 19 doping cases starting with the 2008 Olympic Games and ending with the qualifying period for the 2020 Olympics, then only 4 athletes (2 + 2) can qualify. If the respective NOC has more than 20 cases, then it can only carry 2 athletes (1 + 1). source
Turns out the Romanian Weightlifting Federation has already cases in the given time period and thus can only qualify
athletes, one male and one female. This is really sad. I was hoping there are no doping cases but I was wrong obviously. If they continue like that, Romania will have no athlete at the Olympics.
I'm still hoping this new generation will be different though. They need to understand that doping is not the solution. Hard work is.