Scandals & Feuds ·
The investigation that exposed weightlifting’s hidden tests
McLaren’s 2020 inquiry found doping cover-ups and vote-buying at the IWF. Later proceedings brought lifetime bans for Tamás Aján and Nicu Vlad over anti-doping misconduct.
In June 2020, Richard McLaren’s investigation into the International Weightlifting Federation described a failure with consequences beyond its offices: 40 positive doping tests had been “hidden” in federation records, he said, and athletes whose cases were delayed or covered up had gone on to win medals at world championships and other events. The investigation also found vote-buying and millions of dollars unaccounted for under former president Tamás Aján.
The inquiry followed a German television documentary broadcast by ARD on January 5, 2020, alleging financial irregularities and doping misconduct within the federation. Appointed by the IWF, McLaren concentrated on 2009 to 2019, choosing more recent matters with stronger evidence over allegations reaching back to the 1980s. Aján resigned in April 2020 after 20 years as president and 44 years in federation posts. He had previously denied wrongdoing; there was no immediate response from him to McLaren’s findings.
The electoral findings described a concrete mechanism for retaining power. McLaren said Aján had permitted federation elections to be bought by vote brokers as he kept the presidency and promoted favoured officials. Voters had to photograph their completed ballots to show the brokers. The written report found that the two most recent electoral congresses were “rampant with vote buying” for the presidency and senior executive-board positions, despite monitoring.
Money moved through a system that McLaren said left other officials in financial ignorance. Aján received cash on the federation’s behalf as doping fines from national federations or sponsors, but the destination of some payments was unclear. On one trip to Thailand for a competition and conference, he collected more than $440,000 through 18 cash payments, according to the report. McLaren’s team calculated that $10.4 million was unaccounted for. “Some cash was accounted for, some was not,” he said. That finding did not establish where all the unaccounted-for money had gone.
The anti-doping findings led to further investigation. In 2020 and 2021, the International Testing Agency examined 146 unresolved cases from 2009 to 2019 that had been passed to it by the World Anti-Doping Agency. The ITA described reasons for the failures ranging from administrative oversight, poor records and jurisdictional errors to negligence, complicity and intentional cover-ups.
Some cases could no longer be pursued. The ITA reported that 29 unsanctioned doping violations were impossible to prosecute because of limitation periods, destruction of evidence, or both. It also said some IWF and national federation officials had committed anti-doping rule violations through complicity and tampering, and it brought charges in June 2021.
On June 16, 2022, the ITA announced that the Court of Arbitration for Sport’s Anti-Doping Division had imposed lifetime bans on Aján and former IWF vice-president Nicu Vlad. Those sanctions concerned anti-doping conduct, not the report’s vote-buying or missing-money findings. According to the ITA, the tribunal confirmed charges that included covering up, delaying and obstructing results management for certain athletes so they could compete in high-level events, including the Olympics, and colluding to avoid potential fines and suspensions.