VANCOUVER (Canada), Nov 22: More than a quarter century after the first drug tests in weightlifting were conducted at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, a cloud of suspicion still hangs over the sport, much to the chagrin of athletes and officials.

“I am very tired of talking about doping,” weightlifting icon and former Russian coach Vasily Alexeev said.

“There will continue to be doping scandals because everybody wants to win gold medals and some are willing to take poison to do it.

“Drugs are used in almost all sports, even in chess,” Alexeev said, echoing comments from dozens of athletes, coaches and officials at the World Weightlifting Championships underway in Vancouver.

They are all weary of the sport’s lingering negative reputation after so many years and countless doping scandals.

Alexeev blasted the three Bulgarian weightlifters banned last week for allegedly manipulating their urine samples to trick doping officials and said he would like to see controls become even stricter, going as far as imprisoning cheaters.

But even that, admits the former champion affectionately known among his many admirers as the “Big Man” would not likely curtail those willing to win at all costs.

With spectator interest lagging and Herculean records becoming harder to break, pressure to excel has never been greater and so might the temptation to use performance-enhancing drugs.

Still, International Weightlifting Federation president Tamas Ajan insists doping in weightlifting is declining.

This year, the IWF found only 11 cases of doping among 1,157 athletes, less than one percent compared to 1.4 percent for international sports overall last year.

“The public believes there are still too many positive doping tests in weightlifting, but that is because we have controls,” Ajan said.

“If you don’t have positive cases occasionally, maybe people will start to think it is not a serious control. If we have positive cases, it means the control is serious,” he said.

Iranian strongman Hossein Reza Zadeh, whose head coach is Bulgarian, echoed the viewpoint that the controls are adequate and the sport is now cleaner than ever.

So did Guozheng Zhang of China who would have competed against banned Bulgarian weightlifter Galabin Boevski in the 69 kilo (152 pound) category in Vancouver.new record

China’s Ding Meiyuan twice broke the women’s over-75kg snatch world record en route to gold at the World Weightlifting Championships on Friday.

Ding posted lifts of 135.5kg and 137.5kg to improve her own previous snatch world mark of 135.0kg.

She tied her previous world record in claiming the combined gold with a total of 300.0kg, barely missing a clean and jerk attempt that would have given her that world mark, but still taking the clean and jerk gold with a lift of 162.5kg.—AFP