The 16-year-old won a Commonwealth Games gold medal here last Friday (July 25) in the under 53 category before testing positive for diuretics and masking agents amilioride and hydrochlorothiazide, which can unfairly aid weight loss, as well as cause health problems.

Pending the outcome of her B-sample, tested at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)-accredited laboratory in London yesterday, she will be stripped of her gold medal, which will be awarded instead to Dika Toua of Papua New Guinea.

The IWF have announced that a full investigation will take place into the entourage of the athlete and "certainly the athlete's age will be taken into consideration among all the relevant circumstances".

In a statement posted on their website, they added that Nigeria was one of the countries "under the scope of the IWF for this competition", after the West African country had replaced a number of team members at a very late stage.

There was and is an excellent cooperation and coordination between the CGF Medical Commission and the IWF, they claimed, and relevant testing information has been pooled between the two in order to make the target testing even more effective.

At 16, Chika Amalaha is thought to be one of the youngest athletes ever to test positive ©AFP/Getty Images



The IWF's legal consul Magdolna Trombitas has claimed that huge improvement is being made and that, to her, it is partly a good thing that a case has been found because it shows the success of the work they are doing to catch people.

She revealed that in 2012 and 2013 the IWF conducted over 2,000 tests each year and that in 2014, they have already conducted 1,240, of which 682 have taken place during competitions and 558 have occurred outside competition.

"We are trying our best to increase awareness in the African continent," Trombitas told insidethegames.

"That is why the IWF appointed a very well known lady Zakia Bartagi into the IWF Anti-Doping Commission who conducted an Anti-Doping seminar during the African Youth Olympic Games qualification event in Tunisia."

In January, a first official meeting of the Independent IWF Anti-Doping Commission was held in Budapest, chaired by another experienced official Patrick Schamasch, the former medical director of the International Olympic Committee, during which an action plan was prepared for 2014.

The new IWF Anti-Doping Commission met for the first time earlier this year ©IWF


Targeting youth age groups, working with other organisations such as WADA and making sure the work they are doing is better communicated, is all part of the strategy of the Commission.

"We produce very good statistics and have always been in the top five international federations in terms of testing," Trombitas said.

"If I wanted to interpret the statistics to show how successful we are being, I could do that, but that is not my role.

"My role is to protect the sport and clean athletes and no matter how many bad articles there are with people questioning weightlifting, we won't stop because this is how you protect the sport."

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