strong enough?
Member
As you may be aware IPF divides everything up into regional federations and has regional championships. These count as international championships for the purposes of setting world records. In the IPF you can't set WRs at national or local comps.
The Oceania Powerlifting Federation is pretty much run by Australia and NZ, and they are taking a role in trying to bring all the Pacific countries up to pace.
From what I can tell, inviting the lifters serves a number of purposes:
- Pacific island athletes are extremely competitive despite the small number of people in the sport. Inviting them over makes for good competition for these elite athletes, as well as the Aus/NZ athletes
- having an Oceania comp makes it an international event and allows everyone to have a crack at regional records and WRs, eg 2 WRs were set at this year's Pacific Invitational
- the teams that came here were given coaching and refereeing courses by PA, thus helping develop the sport in the Pacific
Oceania champs aren't always held in Australia though. They were in Samoa and Tahiti a couple of years back.
The federations that make up the OPF all have an anti-doping policy, otherwise they couldn't be part of the OPF or IPF. Any oceania powerlifter can be tested at an OPF/IPF event. At national level, drug testing is pretty scarce though and it's pretty obvious why. These are generally pretty poor countries with minimal facilities to conduct proper drug testing programs. That said, the OPF says its trying to improve things. Samoa apparently tested at its last national championships so that's a step forward.
The Oceania Powerlifting Federation is pretty much run by Australia and NZ, and they are taking a role in trying to bring all the Pacific countries up to pace.
From what I can tell, inviting the lifters serves a number of purposes:
- Pacific island athletes are extremely competitive despite the small number of people in the sport. Inviting them over makes for good competition for these elite athletes, as well as the Aus/NZ athletes
- having an Oceania comp makes it an international event and allows everyone to have a crack at regional records and WRs, eg 2 WRs were set at this year's Pacific Invitational
- the teams that came here were given coaching and refereeing courses by PA, thus helping develop the sport in the Pacific
Oceania champs aren't always held in Australia though. They were in Samoa and Tahiti a couple of years back.
The federations that make up the OPF all have an anti-doping policy, otherwise they couldn't be part of the OPF or IPF. Any oceania powerlifter can be tested at an OPF/IPF event. At national level, drug testing is pretty scarce though and it's pretty obvious why. These are generally pretty poor countries with minimal facilities to conduct proper drug testing programs. That said, the OPF says its trying to improve things. Samoa apparently tested at its last national championships so that's a step forward.