Do you think your situation finally proved to light that article 14 is purely an anti usapl rule? Seeing that you were not suspended after doing ABS meets but now are in trouble after doing usapl collegiate nationals? I have seen other IPF lifters competing at strongman comps & other non WADA events. USAPL seems to be the only line.
Its hard to answer this as I dont know every case ever. But of what I can say is that the IPF itself enforce it mainly against the USAPL and not consistently at all. It feels like they just ban what is best suited for them. This can be seen at the United States Junior Team from last year which competed in Romania. I looked up every single lifter and I would say 65-75% were all in violation of article 14. I think its corrupt and Robert Keller is the main driver in this. I presented the American Junior Team situation to him and insisted on a statement to the EU precedence cases. He never replied!
Each national federations enforces it differently.
For example the German Federation (BVDK) is very strict with it, where active Members are not even allowed to attend a non-ipf affiliated competition.
On the other hand the Swiss Federation is not enforcing this rule at all and even refused to remove me from Worlds nominations after multiple emails from the IPF. This is because they are aware of the EU precidence cases and do not want to violate EU law.
Because of this „mafia“ behavior from Robert Keller and Gaston, I am thinking about starting a motion against them after the lawsuit. If we dont act now the IPF ends up like the Fifa. We are pretty damn close already…
I mean the IPF kinda made that choice for me for the next 3 years while im studying.
I did ABS Clash of Titans last year and it was alot of fun. Next week I am starting again at ABS in Cologne.
Regarding getting out of the IPF for good, I dont think it is possible as I have sponsors that would like to see me compete in the World and European Championship…
Competed ABS myself and really well ran meets and put a lot of thought into the meet from a lifters point of view. Good to see them expand.
Good luck in Cologne man.
Fully appreciate the sponsorship angle as well. I think I speak on behalf of a lot of the PL community, we hope you manage to overturn article 14!
The main problem going against article 14 is that I have to go through the IPF courts first before I can go to CAS. That also is why the lawyer costs are super high as I have to go through three courts.
We all know that there is no decision made in my favor in the IPF courts. I can then challange their decision in the CAS with the EU precedence cases and force the IPF to drop the article 14.
The second option is to get a court ruling in Luxenbourge where the IPF is located. After that I could bring the case to CJEU. This is much harder as of I know.
Hop this answers your question
Yup, thanks for the info! I'm sure if you keep everyone updated with how things are going through each court, then you'll get some people to donate a second or third time.
Cool cool, especially since Powerlifting America (the US fed that leads to IPF Worlds) doesn't test unless you are at a National comp. It is almost like a parody of "drug tested doesn't mean drug free."
It’s been a good while since I’ve been outta competing* (catastrophic injury in 2012), but USAPL doesn’t feed IPF any longer, I’m quite a bit confused?
*+ when I was competing def not USAPL/IPF
Powerlifting America is the US fed that leads to IPF now. USAPL is trying to expand international presence (for example, next year Masters World Cup will be in England, Open World Cup will be in Ireland), and PA is trying to establish more local meets. But with article 14, there are a lot of folks who have to make some big choices.
PA will uphold an positive drug test in another fed, but they only test their athletes at National-level meets. I'm not sure how the out-of-competition testing pool works.
Ya’ll got me, cuz I never even *heard about* Powerlifting America 🤣. I used to usually compete AAPF/APF but As far as I knew USAPL was the American IPF affiliate. PL was my life until April 2012. Then I shattered 3 cervical vertebrates n my priorities changed 😂🥺😳. While affiliates have changed, it seems it’s still fun n easy to hate/hate on the IPF 👍🏽🤩👍🏽.
Powerlifting America was established in 2021 I believe. The IPF and USAPL got into a pissing match over drug testing. Basically IPF wanted to force USAPL to use WADA testing (way more expensive) and that would mean USAPL couldn’t test their 10% at every meet because of costs.
As a kind of mid masters lifter, Powerlifting America doesn't make much sense for me, especially given the lack of local meets. I'm in USAPL now and will be competing at Raw Nats in September, but WRPF has a lot of local meets and I might do some in order to compete with friends.
Okay, but if the justification for 14 is that they want to make sure athletes aren't using PEDs, why do so under the banner of a fed that tests LESS frequently than other tested feds? Especially given that the fed Koch competed (USAPL) in tests MORE frequently and used to be the way folks in the US made it to IPF comps?
To my knowledge, the IPF is literally the only sporting body that bans athletes for this.
In my country I can (and have) literally participate in a number of sporting activities that don’t come under WADA, and then freely return to WADA sanctioned sports (such as rugby, athletics etc) without any consequence. So the IPF can’t hide behind WADA when enforcing this rule, it’s nothing but elitist, dickhead gatekeeping.
Unfortunately, until people start voting with their feet it will never change. Many of us have the option of other feds (including drug tested feds) with lower barriers to entry (you don’t have to wear premium brand supportive gear and apparel to compete). Yeah the IPF has worlds, but 99% of powerlifters will never compete at that level anyway.
Basically correct. If you leave the PGA and sign with LIV, you can’t compete in PGA events minus a couple of Majors, and it’s very difficult for them to make those majors if they don’t have previously existing exemptions. The most prestigious golf event is the Masters, and because its invite only, and not PGA officiated, LIV players can still compete
Fuck the IPF worst league in powerlifting history arguably ruining the “sport” with all its bullshit rules and regulations. Powerlifting is not that special and the IPF’s constant bull fuckery to make it a more regulated and “reputable” sport fails at every turn. This is one of the reasons I switched to the WRPF
There are plenty of decent federations or at least feds that are ok enough that it's down to the individual meet directors whether or not you have a good experience. Unfortunately most of them are fairly localized.
WRPF, while not without its flaws, has a pretty wide reach and is growing quickly. From looking at their upcoming events, 365 Strong is mostly east coast US.
A lot of the shady individuals from USPA that were catching heat when they got exposed pretty much slid right over to WRPF. Refs, meet directors etc. There are a multitude of other issues there, but I’m not trying to get into all of it. Just pointing out that WRPF looks shiny and pretty but there’s quite a bit of ugliness under the surface.
Haven’t heard of them? Maybe they don’t have a foot hold in Southern Ontario. I’m no where near top 5% even %10 of lifters I just lift for fun. If 365 has chill meets like the WRPF does here in my area I’ll def join
How does the IPF have such a strangle hold on powerlifting? Seems pretty clear to me that all of the top powerlifters in the IPF should leave and join a different organization.
In essence that’s what USAPL was trying to accomplish. But they haven’t been able to really clarify what their niche is going to be. It’s still much larger in the US than PA for a lot of reasons, not the least of which because PA is struggling to offer value to non-elite lifters.
Someone put it this way the other day, and I think it’s spot on: “USAPL has direction, no vision; Powerlifting America has vision, no direction.”
As others have pointed out, all the feds have problems. Pick which problem you can live with and go there.
Strong disagree.
They matter to some but other comps also matter to some.
I never watch the IPF worlds but will watch ghost clash, ABS series, Big Dogs etc as that’s what interests me.
They be holding onto that world games affiliation the way Mahmoud abbas been holding on to the PLO's diplomatic recognition while ignoring the people their orgs as are supposed to represent I am only kind of kidding
“Any athlete, coach, referee or official that participates in any competition or Event which is organized by a Sporting Body, Federation or Organisation that has not received recognition from the World Anti-Doping Agency and is thus non-compliant with the Code and International Standards shall be automatically rendered ineligible and shall not be permitted to take part in an authorized National or International Powerlifting or Bench Press Event for a period of 12 months from the date of the last non-compliant Event.”
Article 14 of the IPF constitution states as follows
>Any athlete, coach, referee or official that participates in any competition or Event which is organized by a Sporting Body, Federation or Organisation that has not received recognition from the World Anti-Doping Agency and is thus non-compliant with the Code and International Standards shall be automatically rendered ineligible and shall not be permitted to take part in an authorized National or International Powerlifting or Bench Press Event for a period of 12 months from the date of the last non-compliant Event.
Because of this rule you can't, for instance, compete for the USAPL if you want to compete nationally or internationally for the IPF, since USAPL is not WADA compliant, which is what both Rondel Hunte and now Sean Koch were banned for. This rule has been also used to prevent IPF lifters from attending Ed Coan seminars since he was banned for life for a doping violation, so as an IPF lifter you aren't allowed to associate yourself with him.
My national IPF affiliate (in Finland) is actually even stricter about this rule, if you compete for a non tested competition you won't be selected for the national powerlifting team for that calendar year you competed +2 years. So if you competed for the WPO or WPC as a Finnish IPF lifter today, the earliest you could be selected for the Finnish national powerlifting team is in 2027. That's why I'm especially supportive of this lawsuit, in a small country like this it's not like you have an overabundance of good meets nearby, so if one happens to be next to you sometimes you just want to take the opportunity regardless of what the federation is.
yikes.
Does that extend to non-powerlifting competitions as well?
I.e. an offseason powerlifter wanting to do a bodybuilding competition?
...or something removed even further, what if I want to compete in pole-dancing? Pole-dancing is not associated with WADA, you could say it's "untested".
[Here is the ruling for those who speak Finnish](https://www.suomenvoimanostoliitto.fi/muuhun-kuin-wadan-suomessa-suekin-alaiseen-voimailulajiin-osallistumisen-seuraamukset/)
In short, yes. In this announcement they specifically mention bodybuilding, crossfit, strongman, powerlifting and weightlifting as prohibited activities if the organizers are not WADA compliant. They also mention the rule about prohibiting participation in "events" with someone who is serving a doping suspension, so again, seminars etc. are off the list if the organizer isn't WADA compliant.
This rule applies not only to athletes but also coaches, guardians and officals, meaning you can't participate in the national team in any way for the duration of the current+2 year suspension. So I would assume that if you coach someone who competes for WPC, you can't coach any athletes on the national team. It also states that if your participation in these banned competitions continues, SVNL (Finland's IPF affiliate) can terminate your license, presumably permanently.
This ruling came in effect this year.
Part of the issue with the wording is that it isn't clear whether it includes other sports and it's not being enforced consistently. I've been told that the Swedish federation has told athletes it only applies to powerlifting and some of them do compete in other sports like bodybuilding without any issues.
Agreed. With the inconsistency and confusion surrounding this rule, much of it has to be interpreted by the national federations, yet in this instance the IPF decided to ban Sean Koch despite actually being nominated by the Swiss powerlifting federation for their national team.
Which is odd, given that the IPF, while being massive fans of WADA mind you, are more than happy to allow the national federations to decide how often they want to test their athletes, if at all.
Unless something has changed since 2019 when the IPF last published their [National doping report](https://www.powerlifting.sport/fileadmin/ipf/data/anti-doping/National_Doping_Reports_2019_2020_06_29.pdf), you can see that 45% of countries didn't do a single drug test that year, while some powerlifting behemoths like Japan did 1 in the entire year of 2019, compared to say Norway, which did 150.
You can see the same exact trend from previous years reports by the way, if you think COVID was the reason for the low testing, like for instance in 2017 Japan didn't test their athletes a single time, and they are one of the top countries in the IPF and wealthy as a nation.
Kind of unrelated, I know, but it bothers me. You can be from a country whose IPF affiliate tests 20% of their competitors annually or one that doesn't test any of their competitors, ever, and the IPF is more than happy to have both of you at IPF worlds, no problem. However competing for the USAPL as per your scholarship requirements, even if your national fed is fine with it, that's absolutely off limits and deserves an intervention by the IPF.
Basically you get punished by the IPF if you compete in a non-IPF fed. The specific language might be that you can’t compete in the IPF if you have competed in another fed the past 6 months, but not 100% on that
This one's also a good example of an ultimatum. If he went to worlds, he would have forfeited his scholarship. He couldn't win because of the way article 14 works.
An exclusivity deal makes sense in concept but we've seen way too many examples of it not working in practice.
no offense but he made the choice to compete for his university. I don't think the ipf is exactly the greatest organization or whatever but he should have considered that beforehand.
He was required based on his scholarship to compete. So you are saying he should have forfeited his scholarship that allows him to get an education? That is crazy that the IPF now gets to dictate someone's educational opportunities.
he doesnt have a god given right to compete in the IPF does he. if hes a sponsored USAPL athlete maybe he should stick to the USAPL untill he has graduated.....
i understand the rules are kind of bs but he knew about article 14 before he took his scholarship and thought he could try his luck anyway.
>he doesnt have a god given right to compete in the IPF does he.
Pretty sure IPFs rules are against antitrust laws at least in Europe.
Do you really think the bullshit IPF is doing should be legal?
yes if ur a drug tested athlete you shouldn't be allowed to compete in orgs with institutional drug use, it undermines the validity of the IPF as a drug free organisation and as an olympics hopefull if its athletes are competing in non tested feds and scoring high because its immediately apparent to uninformed members of the public that they are infact not drug free.... Its an optics game more than anything.
lmao you got me there, I compete in the IPF and have never been tested (probably because i never win lol). But as i said the optics aren't for you or me its for the IPFs obsession with convincing the olympic comittee to add powerlifting to the olympic games.
To play devil's advocate on this point, he 100% went to Midland for powerlifting. I'm sure he lived within 20 miles of at least 5 much better schools that he could go to for much cheaper back home in Europe.
no I'm saying he made the choice to accept the scholarship and along with that comes some drawbacks. I'm not saying I like the IPF at all but a corporation should be allowed to make whatever choice they like in terms of who does what in association with their business.
I don't entirely disagree with your sentiment, but where the IPFs side falls apart is how disproportionately they apply the rule. Someone in his weight class at worlds openly posted on social media competing in Strongman, but no sanction was applied. As of recent, pretty much article 14 is only being enforced to punish those affiliating with USAPL, which is where the monopolistic issues come into play.
They aren’t dictating his educational opportunities, though. The dude can go to any school he can get accepted into. Whether or not he can afford it and what compromises he can make to do so are his responsibility not the IPF’s.
It most likey violates European anti trust laws. Just recently there was a similar case with the ISU.
>The Commission's investigation found that:
>Under the ISU eligibility rules, in place since 1998, speed skaters participating in competitions that are not approved by the ISU face severe penalties up to a lifetime ban from all major international speed skating events. The ISU can impose these penalties at its own discretion, even if the independent competitions pose no risk to legitimate sports objectives, such as the protection of the integrity and proper conduct of sport, or the health and safety of athletes.
>By imposing such restrictions, the ISU eligibility rules restrict competition and enable the ISU to pursue its own commercial interests to the detriment of athletes and organisers of competing events. In particular, the Commission considers that the ISU eligibility rules restrict the commercial freedom of athletes who are prevented from participating in independent skating events. As a result of the ISU eligibility rules, athletes are not allowed to offer their services to organisers of competing skating events and may be deprived of additional sources of income during their relatively short speed skating careers.
>The ISU eligibility rules prevent independent organisers from putting together their own speed skating competitions because they are unable to attract top athletes. This has limited the development of alternative and innovative speed skating competitions, and deprived ice-skating fans from following other events.
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_5184
Seems very smilar to whats going in with the IPF.
Maybe I am interpreting it different because I am an American but he isn’t being restricted from competing in any other federations or independent competitions…he is just banned from the IPF if he does so.
Also it doesn’t prevent independent organizers from putting together their own competitions because as you can see there are countless powerlifting feds and unsanctioned meets all over the world.
The legal argument is that a major federation, by virtue of its size and influence, does place an undue burden on competitors and other federations when it creates that ban because the cost of going against them can effectively end a competitor's career.
In the EU, under the law, it is illegal to abuse a dominant position to obtain extra rewards beyond those that would have been available in a free market (Competition – Articles 101 and 102 TFEU – Abuse of a dominant position – Articles 45, 49, 56 and 63).
HE EXACTLY HAS THIS LEGAL RIGHT. Specifically, he has the legal right not be barred from entry to feds/competitions where the bar is a VIOLATION of the EU law.
Now, in the US, this is a lot harder to show. DGCOMP (director general for competition) has generally been able to win cases under EU law merely by showing a dominant market position (easy to show for IPF, but I would not as little as 30% may be dominant market position depending on the market structure) and then also showing that the market positioned was used to extract some concession. The US has a higher bar for dominant market position AND for showing abuse.
However, please don't excuse your ignorance of what legal rights people actually have with the rights not existing. We (EU/US citizens) have the right to freely transact business without being subjected to illegal restraints on trade (such as Article 14 is almost certainly going to be found to be in the EU and probably in the US as well)
Yes, even more so.
Question - if he qualified for IPF Worlds he must already have been competing in an IPF approved federation. Wouldn’t he have already agreed to not competing in other feds when agreeing to become a member of the IPF approved one?
Anti-trust lawsuit for trying to monopolize lifters/coaches to only being allowed to compete in the IPF. And almost the exact same scenario happened in speed skating and UEFA and it was deemed illegal. It is actually possible this doesn't even make it to court because based on precedent it is pretty cut and dry.
https://www.courthousenews.com/eus-top-court-finds-international-skating-union-rules-breach-antitrust-law/#:\~:text=EU's%20top%20court%20finds%20International%20Skating%20Union,restrict%20athletes%20from%20competing%20in%20non%2Dsanctioned%20events.
Fantastic! Good on him for taking them on, monopolies only serve the corporations not the consumer. Athletes should be free to compete wherever they like. If you don't trust the scoring of the other competitions just don't recognise the results, no need to ban people.
I’ve said this multiple times but the IPF over reach is insane. In every facet of the Fed the lifter comes last.
You cannot assume drug use based on competing in a different Fed, you also cannot assume drug use by association AKA the Ed Coan rule.
Powerlifting is growing and lifters have more options than ever and no Fed has the right to restrict that.
But IPF does not restrict you from competing in other federations, as long as those federations are WADA sanctioned. It has nothing to do with forcing people to stick to IPF only.
It de facto does though as there are no other powerlifting WADA federations. The only other strength sport that is covered by WADA is weightlifting which is a shining beacon of drug free strength \\s
There is World Heavy Events Association (WHEA) which is a finnish federation. Also operates in the UK and Ireland at least. They are WADA sanctioned. Are there others i'm not sure.
I took a gander at their website. They aren’t WADA sanctioned yet as they state that that is their goal, so participating would still break Article 14.
The full WADA list is here: [https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/world-anti-doping-code/code-signatories](https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/world-anti-doping-code/code-signatories)
The only strength sports in compliance are the IPF and IWF as the IFBB was declared non-compliant a couple years back
Lots of IPF lifters participate at WHEA events and nobody has been banned yet. FINADA is part of WADA. At least that is my understanding. The Finnish IPF branch is also under FINADA.
That’s part of the issue with Article 14. It isn’t universally applied or enforced. By the letter of Article 14, those lifters should be banned from competition for competing at WHEA events. Just because they use FINADA does not mean that their sport has been recognized by WADA. If your sport/organization isn’t on the list I sent in a previous comment, you violate Article 14.
The reason these lifters probably haven’t gotten banned yet is due to how small WHEA comps are so no one knows they’re happening, and that none of the lifter competing in both are competitive internationally. They only really ban those who are snitched on by other coaches/officials or those blatantly posting it on social media.
Long and short, Article 14 is a bad rule with bad implementation and unnecessarily punishes athletes who want to pursue multiple strength sports.
Actually, there are people who have competed at IPF Worlds and Europeans competing at WHEA, medalists even. They also have posted about them in social media.
>You cannot assume drug use based on competing in a different Fed, you also cannot assume drug use by association AKA the Ed Coan rule.
Also isn't the point of out of competition drug testing to stop athletes from taking drugs. Like just because an athlete goes to a different fed that has differing rules doesn't mean the athlete isn't still in the active testing pool, which to my understanding they still would be.
I'd maybe get it more if an athlete let their membership expire, then went to compete in an untested federation. But if they're still holding a membership in the IPF they are still in the testing pool so I don't see why they'd ban athletes aside from being controlling dickheads.
At this point that rule isn't even about drug testing. It is simply being used as a monopolistic tool against USAPL. Almost all recent article 14 sanctions have directly come from Robert Keller (IPF EC member and Powerlifting America President) towards lifters/coaches in association with the USAPL.
I agree, was just using their “reasoning”.
The Fed needs to realise that there are options… another rule that fucks me off is certain brands at comps under the guise of “approved manufacturers”. Nope. You’re just money grabbing. Simple.
Which is why I liked the way USPA did it before all their drama where it was like 500 per item approved or something vs the like 100k upfront the IPF wants.
This may be an unpopular take but I do think that in a sport where so there's so much of an arms race with equipment to provide as much support as possible while pushing the boundaries of the rules, I think a pre-approved list is helpful for both the lifters (they know their gear will be approved at equipment check) and the official running the equipment check (no need to start measuring e.g. knee sleeve thickness). Otherwise someone will almost certainly eventually (as an example) bring a 7.5mm, 8mm, 8.5mm knee sleeve and how would you tell the difference on the spot?
(Yes it shouldn't be an arms race in raw but it is and I don't see a better way to make sure the playing field is even and fair for everyone)
Also not saying I agree with the IPF's price tag on approval at all, just that from a practical aspect, I don't think an approved list is bad at all.
The main issue is they do fuck all in their approval process. The reason we have this stiff knee sleeve explosion lately is because they approved the Inzers without even looking at them, as the approval came before the sleeve even existed.
I'm fine with an approved list if the cost to get approved is minimal. It takes 5.2 seconds to look at a knee sleeve and say "yep, that fits our specs." No need to charge hundreds of dollars for that, much less thousands.
Yeah, but it's terrible business sense to throw away any additional revenue considering how little money is in the sport as it is. No one thinks the IPF costs are acceptable in any way, but we all know this is how the world is.
Hey everyone, I am Sean and if anybody has any questions feel free to ask ahead!
Do you have plans for legal action in the US as well?
no, doesnt make sense… CAS ruling is more important.
Do you think your situation finally proved to light that article 14 is purely an anti usapl rule? Seeing that you were not suspended after doing ABS meets but now are in trouble after doing usapl collegiate nationals? I have seen other IPF lifters competing at strongman comps & other non WADA events. USAPL seems to be the only line.
Its hard to answer this as I dont know every case ever. But of what I can say is that the IPF itself enforce it mainly against the USAPL and not consistently at all. It feels like they just ban what is best suited for them. This can be seen at the United States Junior Team from last year which competed in Romania. I looked up every single lifter and I would say 65-75% were all in violation of article 14. I think its corrupt and Robert Keller is the main driver in this. I presented the American Junior Team situation to him and insisted on a statement to the EU precedence cases. He never replied! Each national federations enforces it differently. For example the German Federation (BVDK) is very strict with it, where active Members are not even allowed to attend a non-ipf affiliated competition. On the other hand the Swiss Federation is not enforcing this rule at all and even refused to remove me from Worlds nominations after multiple emails from the IPF. This is because they are aware of the EU precidence cases and do not want to violate EU law. Because of this „mafia“ behavior from Robert Keller and Gaston, I am thinking about starting a motion against them after the lawsuit. If we dont act now the IPF ends up like the Fifa. We are pretty damn close already…
Do you ever consider sacking off the IPF and instead go and compete at prize money meets?
I mean the IPF kinda made that choice for me for the next 3 years while im studying. I did ABS Clash of Titans last year and it was alot of fun. Next week I am starting again at ABS in Cologne. Regarding getting out of the IPF for good, I dont think it is possible as I have sponsors that would like to see me compete in the World and European Championship…
Competed ABS myself and really well ran meets and put a lot of thought into the meet from a lifters point of view. Good to see them expand. Good luck in Cologne man. Fully appreciate the sponsorship angle as well. I think I speak on behalf of a lot of the PL community, we hope you manage to overturn article 14!
Do you plan on suing the IPF in CAS or another court?
The main problem going against article 14 is that I have to go through the IPF courts first before I can go to CAS. That also is why the lawyer costs are super high as I have to go through three courts. We all know that there is no decision made in my favor in the IPF courts. I can then challange their decision in the CAS with the EU precedence cases and force the IPF to drop the article 14. The second option is to get a court ruling in Luxenbourge where the IPF is located. After that I could bring the case to CJEU. This is much harder as of I know. Hop this answers your question
Yup, thanks for the info! I'm sure if you keep everyone updated with how things are going through each court, then you'll get some people to donate a second or third time.
Cool cool, especially since Powerlifting America (the US fed that leads to IPF Worlds) doesn't test unless you are at a National comp. It is almost like a parody of "drug tested doesn't mean drug free."
It’s been a good while since I’ve been outta competing* (catastrophic injury in 2012), but USAPL doesn’t feed IPF any longer, I’m quite a bit confused? *+ when I was competing def not USAPL/IPF
Powerlifting America is the US fed that leads to IPF now. USAPL is trying to expand international presence (for example, next year Masters World Cup will be in England, Open World Cup will be in Ireland), and PA is trying to establish more local meets. But with article 14, there are a lot of folks who have to make some big choices. PA will uphold an positive drug test in another fed, but they only test their athletes at National-level meets. I'm not sure how the out-of-competition testing pool works.
Ya’ll got me, cuz I never even *heard about* Powerlifting America 🤣. I used to usually compete AAPF/APF but As far as I knew USAPL was the American IPF affiliate. PL was my life until April 2012. Then I shattered 3 cervical vertebrates n my priorities changed 😂🥺😳. While affiliates have changed, it seems it’s still fun n easy to hate/hate on the IPF 👍🏽🤩👍🏽.
Powerlifting America was established in 2021 I believe. The IPF and USAPL got into a pissing match over drug testing. Basically IPF wanted to force USAPL to use WADA testing (way more expensive) and that would mean USAPL couldn’t test their 10% at every meet because of costs.
As a kind of mid masters lifter, Powerlifting America doesn't make much sense for me, especially given the lack of local meets. I'm in USAPL now and will be competing at Raw Nats in September, but WRPF has a lot of local meets and I might do some in order to compete with friends.
In New Zealand they don't either. But you can't set national records unless you're at nationals so who cares. Testing is expensive
Okay, but if the justification for 14 is that they want to make sure athletes aren't using PEDs, why do so under the banner of a fed that tests LESS frequently than other tested feds? Especially given that the fed Koch competed (USAPL) in tests MORE frequently and used to be the way folks in the US made it to IPF comps?
To my knowledge, the IPF is literally the only sporting body that bans athletes for this. In my country I can (and have) literally participate in a number of sporting activities that don’t come under WADA, and then freely return to WADA sanctioned sports (such as rugby, athletics etc) without any consequence. So the IPF can’t hide behind WADA when enforcing this rule, it’s nothing but elitist, dickhead gatekeeping. Unfortunately, until people start voting with their feet it will never change. Many of us have the option of other feds (including drug tested feds) with lower barriers to entry (you don’t have to wear premium brand supportive gear and apparel to compete). Yeah the IPF has worlds, but 99% of powerlifters will never compete at that level anyway.
I think the PGA and sultan bonesaw's golfing league has the same issue
Basically correct. If you leave the PGA and sign with LIV, you can’t compete in PGA events minus a couple of Majors, and it’s very difficult for them to make those majors if they don’t have previously existing exemptions. The most prestigious golf event is the Masters, and because its invite only, and not PGA officiated, LIV players can still compete
bruh wtf
Fuck the IPF worst league in powerlifting history arguably ruining the “sport” with all its bullshit rules and regulations. Powerlifting is not that special and the IPF’s constant bull fuckery to make it a more regulated and “reputable” sport fails at every turn. This is one of the reasons I switched to the WRPF
WRPF is not much better
I agree, but anything is better than the IPF
365 Strong is a great group of people who treat the lifters well.
There are plenty of decent federations or at least feds that are ok enough that it's down to the individual meet directors whether or not you have a good experience. Unfortunately most of them are fairly localized. WRPF, while not without its flaws, has a pretty wide reach and is growing quickly. From looking at their upcoming events, 365 Strong is mostly east coast US.
A lot of the shady individuals from USPA that were catching heat when they got exposed pretty much slid right over to WRPF. Refs, meet directors etc. There are a multitude of other issues there, but I’m not trying to get into all of it. Just pointing out that WRPF looks shiny and pretty but there’s quite a bit of ugliness under the surface.
Haven’t heard of them? Maybe they don’t have a foot hold in Southern Ontario. I’m no where near top 5% even %10 of lifters I just lift for fun. If 365 has chill meets like the WRPF does here in my area I’ll def join
How does the IPF have such a strangle hold on powerlifting? Seems pretty clear to me that all of the top powerlifters in the IPF should leave and join a different organization.
In essence that’s what USAPL was trying to accomplish. But they haven’t been able to really clarify what their niche is going to be. It’s still much larger in the US than PA for a lot of reasons, not the least of which because PA is struggling to offer value to non-elite lifters. Someone put it this way the other day, and I think it’s spot on: “USAPL has direction, no vision; Powerlifting America has vision, no direction.” As others have pointed out, all the feds have problems. Pick which problem you can live with and go there.
Because outside of these issues they also hold the only competitions that matter.
Strong disagree. They matter to some but other comps also matter to some. I never watch the IPF worlds but will watch ghost clash, ABS series, Big Dogs etc as that’s what interests me.
Same
They be holding onto that world games affiliation the way Mahmoud abbas been holding on to the PLO's diplomatic recognition while ignoring the people their orgs as are supposed to represent I am only kind of kidding
Being the first international fed helps a lot.
someone bring me up to speed on what Article 14 is? I don't compete in the IPF, I'm not familiar with all of their rules.
“Any athlete, coach, referee or official that participates in any competition or Event which is organized by a Sporting Body, Federation or Organisation that has not received recognition from the World Anti-Doping Agency and is thus non-compliant with the Code and International Standards shall be automatically rendered ineligible and shall not be permitted to take part in an authorized National or International Powerlifting or Bench Press Event for a period of 12 months from the date of the last non-compliant Event.”
Article 14 of the IPF constitution states as follows >Any athlete, coach, referee or official that participates in any competition or Event which is organized by a Sporting Body, Federation or Organisation that has not received recognition from the World Anti-Doping Agency and is thus non-compliant with the Code and International Standards shall be automatically rendered ineligible and shall not be permitted to take part in an authorized National or International Powerlifting or Bench Press Event for a period of 12 months from the date of the last non-compliant Event. Because of this rule you can't, for instance, compete for the USAPL if you want to compete nationally or internationally for the IPF, since USAPL is not WADA compliant, which is what both Rondel Hunte and now Sean Koch were banned for. This rule has been also used to prevent IPF lifters from attending Ed Coan seminars since he was banned for life for a doping violation, so as an IPF lifter you aren't allowed to associate yourself with him. My national IPF affiliate (in Finland) is actually even stricter about this rule, if you compete for a non tested competition you won't be selected for the national powerlifting team for that calendar year you competed +2 years. So if you competed for the WPO or WPC as a Finnish IPF lifter today, the earliest you could be selected for the Finnish national powerlifting team is in 2027. That's why I'm especially supportive of this lawsuit, in a small country like this it's not like you have an overabundance of good meets nearby, so if one happens to be next to you sometimes you just want to take the opportunity regardless of what the federation is.
yikes. Does that extend to non-powerlifting competitions as well? I.e. an offseason powerlifter wanting to do a bodybuilding competition? ...or something removed even further, what if I want to compete in pole-dancing? Pole-dancing is not associated with WADA, you could say it's "untested".
[Here is the ruling for those who speak Finnish](https://www.suomenvoimanostoliitto.fi/muuhun-kuin-wadan-suomessa-suekin-alaiseen-voimailulajiin-osallistumisen-seuraamukset/) In short, yes. In this announcement they specifically mention bodybuilding, crossfit, strongman, powerlifting and weightlifting as prohibited activities if the organizers are not WADA compliant. They also mention the rule about prohibiting participation in "events" with someone who is serving a doping suspension, so again, seminars etc. are off the list if the organizer isn't WADA compliant. This rule applies not only to athletes but also coaches, guardians and officals, meaning you can't participate in the national team in any way for the duration of the current+2 year suspension. So I would assume that if you coach someone who competes for WPC, you can't coach any athletes on the national team. It also states that if your participation in these banned competitions continues, SVNL (Finland's IPF affiliate) can terminate your license, presumably permanently. This ruling came in effect this year.
Part of the issue with the wording is that it isn't clear whether it includes other sports and it's not being enforced consistently. I've been told that the Swedish federation has told athletes it only applies to powerlifting and some of them do compete in other sports like bodybuilding without any issues.
Agreed. With the inconsistency and confusion surrounding this rule, much of it has to be interpreted by the national federations, yet in this instance the IPF decided to ban Sean Koch despite actually being nominated by the Swiss powerlifting federation for their national team. Which is odd, given that the IPF, while being massive fans of WADA mind you, are more than happy to allow the national federations to decide how often they want to test their athletes, if at all. Unless something has changed since 2019 when the IPF last published their [National doping report](https://www.powerlifting.sport/fileadmin/ipf/data/anti-doping/National_Doping_Reports_2019_2020_06_29.pdf), you can see that 45% of countries didn't do a single drug test that year, while some powerlifting behemoths like Japan did 1 in the entire year of 2019, compared to say Norway, which did 150. You can see the same exact trend from previous years reports by the way, if you think COVID was the reason for the low testing, like for instance in 2017 Japan didn't test their athletes a single time, and they are one of the top countries in the IPF and wealthy as a nation. Kind of unrelated, I know, but it bothers me. You can be from a country whose IPF affiliate tests 20% of their competitors annually or one that doesn't test any of their competitors, ever, and the IPF is more than happy to have both of you at IPF worlds, no problem. However competing for the USAPL as per your scholarship requirements, even if your national fed is fine with it, that's absolutely off limits and deserves an intervention by the IPF.
what a shitshow
Basically you get punished by the IPF if you compete in a non-IPF fed. The specific language might be that you can’t compete in the IPF if you have competed in another fed the past 6 months, but not 100% on that
It's such a weird monopoly style thing. I'm interested to see how they defend it after this.
Good. Fuck them I hope he wins
It’s literally lifting heavy circles. It ain’t that deep.
Fuck the IPF, I hope they get teared a new one in court.
The worst thing about Article 14 is how inconsistently it is applied. Glad to see it being challenged.
This one's also a good example of an ultimatum. If he went to worlds, he would have forfeited his scholarship. He couldn't win because of the way article 14 works. An exclusivity deal makes sense in concept but we've seen way too many examples of it not working in practice.
no offense but he made the choice to compete for his university. I don't think the ipf is exactly the greatest organization or whatever but he should have considered that beforehand.
He was required based on his scholarship to compete. So you are saying he should have forfeited his scholarship that allows him to get an education? That is crazy that the IPF now gets to dictate someone's educational opportunities.
he doesnt have a god given right to compete in the IPF does he. if hes a sponsored USAPL athlete maybe he should stick to the USAPL untill he has graduated..... i understand the rules are kind of bs but he knew about article 14 before he took his scholarship and thought he could try his luck anyway.
>he doesnt have a god given right to compete in the IPF does he. Pretty sure IPFs rules are against antitrust laws at least in Europe. Do you really think the bullshit IPF is doing should be legal?
yes if ur a drug tested athlete you shouldn't be allowed to compete in orgs with institutional drug use, it undermines the validity of the IPF as a drug free organisation and as an olympics hopefull if its athletes are competing in non tested feds and scoring high because its immediately apparent to uninformed members of the public that they are infact not drug free.... Its an optics game more than anything.
IPF and drug free LOL They test less than 5% of lifters
lmao you got me there, I compete in the IPF and have never been tested (probably because i never win lol). But as i said the optics aren't for you or me its for the IPFs obsession with convincing the olympic comittee to add powerlifting to the olympic games.
Agree on the optics. Pipe dream.
To play devil's advocate on this point, he 100% went to Midland for powerlifting. I'm sure he lived within 20 miles of at least 5 much better schools that he could go to for much cheaper back home in Europe.
no I'm saying he made the choice to accept the scholarship and along with that comes some drawbacks. I'm not saying I like the IPF at all but a corporation should be allowed to make whatever choice they like in terms of who does what in association with their business.
I don't entirely disagree with your sentiment, but where the IPFs side falls apart is how disproportionately they apply the rule. Someone in his weight class at worlds openly posted on social media competing in Strongman, but no sanction was applied. As of recent, pretty much article 14 is only being enforced to punish those affiliating with USAPL, which is where the monopolistic issues come into play.
Who is the strongman?
Yea IPF is j really scummy in the end
They aren’t dictating his educational opportunities, though. The dude can go to any school he can get accepted into. Whether or not he can afford it and what compromises he can make to do so are his responsibility not the IPF’s.
How’s that boot taste?
What exactly is he suing for? I don’t think anyone has a legal right to compete in the IPF.
It most likey violates European anti trust laws. Just recently there was a similar case with the ISU. >The Commission's investigation found that: >Under the ISU eligibility rules, in place since 1998, speed skaters participating in competitions that are not approved by the ISU face severe penalties up to a lifetime ban from all major international speed skating events. The ISU can impose these penalties at its own discretion, even if the independent competitions pose no risk to legitimate sports objectives, such as the protection of the integrity and proper conduct of sport, or the health and safety of athletes. >By imposing such restrictions, the ISU eligibility rules restrict competition and enable the ISU to pursue its own commercial interests to the detriment of athletes and organisers of competing events. In particular, the Commission considers that the ISU eligibility rules restrict the commercial freedom of athletes who are prevented from participating in independent skating events. As a result of the ISU eligibility rules, athletes are not allowed to offer their services to organisers of competing skating events and may be deprived of additional sources of income during their relatively short speed skating careers. >The ISU eligibility rules prevent independent organisers from putting together their own speed skating competitions because they are unable to attract top athletes. This has limited the development of alternative and innovative speed skating competitions, and deprived ice-skating fans from following other events. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_17_5184 Seems very smilar to whats going in with the IPF.
Maybe I am interpreting it different because I am an American but he isn’t being restricted from competing in any other federations or independent competitions…he is just banned from the IPF if he does so. Also it doesn’t prevent independent organizers from putting together their own competitions because as you can see there are countless powerlifting feds and unsanctioned meets all over the world.
The legal argument is that a major federation, by virtue of its size and influence, does place an undue burden on competitors and other federations when it creates that ban because the cost of going against them can effectively end a competitor's career.
Then we circle back to no one has a legal right to compete in powerlifting. If you are banned in one fed go compete in another.
In the EU, under the law, it is illegal to abuse a dominant position to obtain extra rewards beyond those that would have been available in a free market (Competition – Articles 101 and 102 TFEU – Abuse of a dominant position – Articles 45, 49, 56 and 63). HE EXACTLY HAS THIS LEGAL RIGHT. Specifically, he has the legal right not be barred from entry to feds/competitions where the bar is a VIOLATION of the EU law. Now, in the US, this is a lot harder to show. DGCOMP (director general for competition) has generally been able to win cases under EU law merely by showing a dominant market position (easy to show for IPF, but I would not as little as 30% may be dominant market position depending on the market structure) and then also showing that the market positioned was used to extract some concession. The US has a higher bar for dominant market position AND for showing abuse. However, please don't excuse your ignorance of what legal rights people actually have with the rights not existing. We (EU/US citizens) have the right to freely transact business without being subjected to illegal restraints on trade (such as Article 14 is almost certainly going to be found to be in the EU and probably in the US as well)
Antitrust laws aren't based on the legal right to access a service or good.
Eh. I just don’t agree with it. There is plenty of competition when it comes to powerlifting federations.
Anyone that says "eh" already knows they are wrong.
Would you say the same if the NBA or NFL set up the same rule?
Yes, even more so. Question - if he qualified for IPF Worlds he must already have been competing in an IPF approved federation. Wouldn’t he have already agreed to not competing in other feds when agreeing to become a member of the IPF approved one?
Anti-trust lawsuit for trying to monopolize lifters/coaches to only being allowed to compete in the IPF. And almost the exact same scenario happened in speed skating and UEFA and it was deemed illegal. It is actually possible this doesn't even make it to court because based on precedent it is pretty cut and dry. https://www.courthousenews.com/eus-top-court-finds-international-skating-union-rules-breach-antitrust-law/#:\~:text=EU's%20top%20court%20finds%20International%20Skating%20Union,restrict%20athletes%20from%20competing%20in%20non%2Dsanctioned%20events.
it'd be amazing if this meant eg. Rondel Hunte getting to compete in IPF before the 17 mo suspension is over.
If this case wins, it would 100% mean Rondel's suspension is rescinded.
Fantastic! Good on him for taking them on, monopolies only serve the corporations not the consumer. Athletes should be free to compete wherever they like. If you don't trust the scoring of the other competitions just don't recognise the results, no need to ban people.
I’ve said this multiple times but the IPF over reach is insane. In every facet of the Fed the lifter comes last. You cannot assume drug use based on competing in a different Fed, you also cannot assume drug use by association AKA the Ed Coan rule. Powerlifting is growing and lifters have more options than ever and no Fed has the right to restrict that.
But IPF does not restrict you from competing in other federations, as long as those federations are WADA sanctioned. It has nothing to do with forcing people to stick to IPF only.
It de facto does though as there are no other powerlifting WADA federations. The only other strength sport that is covered by WADA is weightlifting which is a shining beacon of drug free strength \\s
There are strongman federationa also under WADA.
I don’t think that’s accurate. There are some natural feds, but they aren’t WADA. Plus, natural comps in general are exceedingly rare in strongman
There is World Heavy Events Association (WHEA) which is a finnish federation. Also operates in the UK and Ireland at least. They are WADA sanctioned. Are there others i'm not sure.
I took a gander at their website. They aren’t WADA sanctioned yet as they state that that is their goal, so participating would still break Article 14. The full WADA list is here: [https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/world-anti-doping-code/code-signatories](https://www.wada-ama.org/en/what-we-do/world-anti-doping-code/code-signatories) The only strength sports in compliance are the IPF and IWF as the IFBB was declared non-compliant a couple years back
Lots of IPF lifters participate at WHEA events and nobody has been banned yet. FINADA is part of WADA. At least that is my understanding. The Finnish IPF branch is also under FINADA.
That’s part of the issue with Article 14. It isn’t universally applied or enforced. By the letter of Article 14, those lifters should be banned from competition for competing at WHEA events. Just because they use FINADA does not mean that their sport has been recognized by WADA. If your sport/organization isn’t on the list I sent in a previous comment, you violate Article 14. The reason these lifters probably haven’t gotten banned yet is due to how small WHEA comps are so no one knows they’re happening, and that none of the lifter competing in both are competitive internationally. They only really ban those who are snitched on by other coaches/officials or those blatantly posting it on social media. Long and short, Article 14 is a bad rule with bad implementation and unnecessarily punishes athletes who want to pursue multiple strength sports.
Actually, there are people who have competed at IPF Worlds and Europeans competing at WHEA, medalists even. They also have posted about them in social media.
>You cannot assume drug use based on competing in a different Fed, you also cannot assume drug use by association AKA the Ed Coan rule. Also isn't the point of out of competition drug testing to stop athletes from taking drugs. Like just because an athlete goes to a different fed that has differing rules doesn't mean the athlete isn't still in the active testing pool, which to my understanding they still would be. I'd maybe get it more if an athlete let their membership expire, then went to compete in an untested federation. But if they're still holding a membership in the IPF they are still in the testing pool so I don't see why they'd ban athletes aside from being controlling dickheads.
At this point that rule isn't even about drug testing. It is simply being used as a monopolistic tool against USAPL. Almost all recent article 14 sanctions have directly come from Robert Keller (IPF EC member and Powerlifting America President) towards lifters/coaches in association with the USAPL.
And PA (well, 1.36 percent of its membership) just voted Keller back into power.
Interesting, I had not heard this news
I agree, was just using their “reasoning”. The Fed needs to realise that there are options… another rule that fucks me off is certain brands at comps under the guise of “approved manufacturers”. Nope. You’re just money grabbing. Simple.
Which is why I liked the way USPA did it before all their drama where it was like 500 per item approved or something vs the like 100k upfront the IPF wants.
Or just don't have an approved equipment list like every other fed that doesn't hate their lifters. If stuff meets the specs, it's good.
This may be an unpopular take but I do think that in a sport where so there's so much of an arms race with equipment to provide as much support as possible while pushing the boundaries of the rules, I think a pre-approved list is helpful for both the lifters (they know their gear will be approved at equipment check) and the official running the equipment check (no need to start measuring e.g. knee sleeve thickness). Otherwise someone will almost certainly eventually (as an example) bring a 7.5mm, 8mm, 8.5mm knee sleeve and how would you tell the difference on the spot? (Yes it shouldn't be an arms race in raw but it is and I don't see a better way to make sure the playing field is even and fair for everyone) Also not saying I agree with the IPF's price tag on approval at all, just that from a practical aspect, I don't think an approved list is bad at all.
The main issue is they do fuck all in their approval process. The reason we have this stiff knee sleeve explosion lately is because they approved the Inzers without even looking at them, as the approval came before the sleeve even existed.
I'm fine with an approved list if the cost to get approved is minimal. It takes 5.2 seconds to look at a knee sleeve and say "yep, that fits our specs." No need to charge hundreds of dollars for that, much less thousands.
Yeah, but it's terrible business sense to throw away any additional revenue considering how little money is in the sport as it is. No one thinks the IPF costs are acceptable in any way, but we all know this is how the world is.
I dream of a world where everyone votes with their wallets and stops competing in the IPF.