By Victor Kanayo
A Ukrainian Weightlifting coach, Matsokha Mykhailo, has been banned for life by the International Weightlifting Federation’s (IWF) after his involvement in doping.
The investigation procedures were handled by the International Testing Agency (ITA) after they got endorsement of IWF to carry out testings of its athletes and technical officials as a way to toughen up on doping without any interference, according to Insidethegames.biz.
He was said to be involved in “tampering and complicity” in relation to an offence by his athlete Dmytro Chumak, a triple European champion for Ukraine and a multiple medallist at the IWF World Championships at weights ranging from 94 kilograms to 109kg.
Chumak, 32, sixth at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, is provisionally suspended after being charged with evading testers and attempted bribery in May 2021.
In the past, punishing coaches was unheard of when the IWF policed doping itself, but this is the third time since the IWF-ITA deal was signed in October in 2020 that a coach has been kicked out of weightlifting.
The Egyptian Khaled Korany was banned just over two years ago, and the Thailand coach Liu Ning, from China, was next to go last May.
The ITA has also revealed that more medallists from the re-arranged 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo has been provisionally suspended – Anton Pliesnoi from Georgia – and that Pakistan’s top lifter, the Olympian Talha Talib, has accepted a three-year suspension.
Current suspensions, provisional or confirmed, feature on a new page on the ITA’s website rather than on the IWF’s site, which will continue to list historic sanctions.
