In brief
International Weightlifting Federation secretaries Jose Quinones cautioned at the World Championships that the sport risks becoming obsolete unless it adapts to the changing interests of younger viewers. He outlined a suite of reforms, including a partnership with the International Testing Authority for independent doping control and the introduction of mixed‑team and public‑space competitions. The IWF plans a new international calendar for 2028, but questions remain about the effectiveness of these measures and whether they will rescue the sport’s long‑term relevance.
At the World Weightlifting Championships in Ningbo on November 7, 2026, International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) General Secretary Jose Quinones issued a stark warning: weightlifting must innovate to survive or it will become the sporting equivalent of a dinosaur.
In an interview with Xinhua on the sidelines of the event, Quinones explained that attracting younger audiences has become a pressing challenge for traditional Olympic sports, unlike newer shows that lack the same values of clean competition. He stated, "How can you remain competitive and clean against people who don't have the same values?" The former comment accentuates the tension between maintaining the sport’s purity and courting a generation increasingly drawn to less regulated forms of entertainment.
Quinones underscored the IWF’s heavy workload after the doping scandals that surfaced via retesting of samples from the 2008 Beijing and 2012 London Olympics. Those investigations uncovered a high incidence of violations and led the International Olympic Committee to cut the sport’s athlete quotas dramatically. In response, the IWF moved the authority for doping control to the independent International Testing Authority, while it retains the right to impose sanctions on positive cases. Quinones said, "We don't decide who will be tested; we decide, if it's a positive case, what the sanction will be. Everything is in third hands. In that way, we cannot control, we cannot hide anything."
The federation has also increased the number of testing occasions, especially outside competition, and earmarked a fixed portion of its annual international budget for anti‑doping education, seminars and research. He proudly added that in the last two Olympic Games the IWF recorded zero doping cases.
Beyond anti‑doping, the IWF is actively reshaping the sport’s format to appeal more to younger spectators. Trials of a mixed‑team event, featuring two men and two women competing together, were conducted earlier in the year. The organization has also experimented with public‑space competitions, staging lifts in vacant urban squares and shopping malls to capture audience attention in unconventional venues.
These experiments are framed as part of a broader strategy that includes an upcoming overhaul of the international calendar slated for 2028. The federation intends to streamline the number of major competitions and introduce a clearer, more engaging progression path for athletes and fans alike. Quinones also highlighted the importance of role models, saying that bringing in clean athletes who can inspire a younger cohort is integral to both keeping the sport’s reputation and building its future.
Though the IWF’s reforms are extensive, specific outcomes remain uncertain, according to Quinones himself. He noted that the effectiveness of the new competition formats and promotional experiments in drawing younger audiences has yet to be thoroughly measured. Further, the sport’s ability to sustain a clean image while competing with other entertainment alternatives continues to pose a risk, especially as one can no longer control external values of new sports.
Ultimately, the IWF acknowledges that while the trajectory of weightlifting’s relevance is still unclear, the steps it is taking—independent doping oversight, expanded testing, experimental competition structures, and a revised competition calendar—are intended to keep the discipline alive and thriving for the next few decades.
