Dope: Bulgarian weightlifters banned from Rio 2016

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Executive Board has banned Bulgaria from competing at Rio 2016 due to multiple positive doping cases during the qualification period, it has been announced.

In August, 11 Bulgarian weightlifters were banned from competing at this year’s World Championships after the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld punishments imposed by the IWF.

It came after eight male and three female weightlifters tested positive for the banned anabolic steroid stanozolol at a training camp for the European Championships in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.

Asen Muradov, Ferdi Nazif, Vladimir Urumov, Stoyan Enev and Deyan Minchev, as well as female athletes Nadezhda-Mey Tuy Nguen, and Maya Ivanova, were suspended for nine months.

Read also: 5 Russian athletes hit with doping bans

Former European champions Demir Demirev, Ivan Markov and Ivaylo Filev and female weightlifter Milka Maneva were banned for 18 months as they were already suspended for doping.

Bulgaria has won a total of 36 Olympic weightlifting medals, including 12 golds, marking it out as the nation’s second strongest sport at the Games behind wrestling.

The Bulgarian Weightlifting Federation was temporarily stripped of its licence due to doping among weightlifters in 2009, a year after it had withdrawn its team before the start of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games following failed tests for 11 of its members.

Bulgaria’s team was also sent home in shame from the Sydney 2000 Games, where it was stripped of three gold medals.

The Anti-Doping Commission claimed that steroid profiling, introduced by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) last year, is proving very effective and provides useful information for anti-doping purposes.

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