Admin l Thursday, June 16, 2022
LAUSANNE – The Anti-Doping Division of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS ADD) today imposed lifetime ban on two former boss of the International Wrestling Federation, IWF, Mr. Tamas Ajan, former president and Mr Nicu Vlad, former President and Vice President of the association respectively.
Ajan was also former IWF Secretary General and former member of the Internatieonal Olympic Committee (“IOC”) and former council member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, while Mr. Vlad was former IWF President, former Head-Coach of the Romanian Weightlifting Federation, former Vice-President of the IWF Anti-Doping Commission and former Chairman of the IWF Technical Committee.
Mr Aján is found to have committed violations of Articles 2.5 and 2.8 of the 2009 International Weightlifting Anti-Doping Rules, Articles 2.5 and 2.8 of the 2012 International Weightlifting AntiDoping Rules and Articles 2.5 and 2.9 of the 2015 International Weightlifting Anti-Doping Rules (tampering, which includes engaging in any fraudulent conduct to alter results or prevent normal procedure from occurring and complicity involving an anti-doping rule violation).
Consequently, CAS imposed a lifetime ineligibility on commencing on 16 June 2022.
CAS found Mr Vlad to have committed violations of Article 2.8 of the 2009 International Weightlifting Anti-Doping Rules (complicity involving an anti-doping rule violation and subsequently imposed lifetime ineligibility on him, commencing on 16 June 2022.
In December 2021, the International Testing Agency (ITA) acting on delegation from the IWF, filed requests for arbitration at the CAS ADD asserting Anti-Doping Rule Violations (ADRVs) against the former IWF officials in relation to their alleged involvement in tampering with the doping control process and complicity in anti-doping rule violations involving multiple weightlifting athletes over a period of many years since 2012.
“The ADRVs asserted against both former IWF officials were proven to the comfortable satisfaction of the CAS ADD Sole Arbitrator. Given the seriousness of the ADRVs and the length of time over which they were committed, the CAS ADD Sole Arbitrator found lifetime ineligibility to be the appropriate sanction”, the Court of Arbitration said.
