IPF General Assembly Proposals

The IPF has published the agenda for the 2009 General Assembly meeting that will take place on November 1 in conjunction with the World Powerlifting Championships in New Dehli, India.

At the 2009 General Assembly, the federation's Constitution and By-Laws can only be changed by a 2/3 majority.

No positions are up for election in 2009.

A number of new proposals will be presented at the meeting.

Germany, Luxembourg, and France propose (3.8a & 3.8b) elimination of the Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) for benchers who cannot fully extend their arms. The IPF currently allows lifters with the proper TUE to complete the bench press up to 15 degrees from a full lockout. The proposals claim that the current allowance are putting other lifters at a disadvantage, are unevenly enforced, make for difficult determinations, and that true medical diagnosis are not always behind the TUE's.

From Germany's proposal: "we have recognized that there is an inflation of athletes (mainly in Bench Press competitions), who are not able to fully extend their arms, whereas they are able to do it at the beginning of the lift and not at the completion of the lift. In 3-lift the same concerned athletes are able to extend their arms at the Deadlift?"

Austria has submitted a proposal (2.1) to change the By-Laws to require all lifters, coaches, referees and officials from each federation to stay in the official hotel during Championships. Those that do not would not be allowed to take part in the meet. The reasons cited for the change: "The organizers have special agreements with the hotels, that they can provide a special room rate for the championship. These rates are only possible, if the organizer has got a high number of people in the hotel. It is also important for the organizer to know, how many rooms he should reserve, because it is always difficult, if he reserve about 300 rooms and than he need 350, or if he reserve 400 rooms and he need only 320. Sometimes, if the organizer does not have the capacity he ordered, he has to pay the rest of the rooms by himself. To stay in the official hotel is international standard and in all other sport federations and it is compulsive to stay in the official hotel."

The NAPF has proposed (3.1) re-adding the women's 97 pound and men's 114 pound weight classes to National, Regional, and Continental Championships. The proposal reads that the Technical Committee did not take into account the large number of countries and regions (specifically Asia, North America, and South America) that have a large number of lifters in those weight classes. The proposal would allow lifters in these weight class to set national, regional and world records at National and Regional Championships.

Luxembourg has made a number of proposals (3.2) for changes to the Technical Rules. First, they want the clause "or is touching the abdominal area" deleted from the definition of when to throw the red card during the bench press. The current wording is: "Bar is not lowered to chest i.e. not reaching the chest or is touching the abdominal area."

Second, they want to disallow all uneven extension rather than just "pronounced and exaggerated uneven extension" during the bench press.

Third, they want downward movement of the bar to be allowed during press of the bench press.

Fourth, they propose allowing foot movement as long as the feet remain flat on the floor.

Luxembourg also proposes (3.4) specific language regarding alterations of bench shirts: "The only alterations that may be made to the supportive shirt designed for bench pressing is a tightening which must be made only on the original seams at the arm area, it should not be allowed to open the original seams. A shortening of the sleeves (arm length) at the supportive shirt should not be allowed. The arm length (sleeves) should not extend under the elbows. The manufactures must specify the original minimum and the maximum arm length of the supportive shirts. Any other doctoring or manipulation to any part of the shirt specifically to that of the neckline or chest area will render the shirt illegal."

In two different proposals (3.7a & 3.7b), Germany and Luxembourg petition for the removal of the 15 degree starting position rule in the squat. Currently, erect is defined as "not leaning forward from the waist more than an angle of 15 degrees". Both proposals find that it is impossible for referees to make such a determination.

Austria proposes (3.9) eliminating the lift off from the bench press. They think that a byproduct of this change would be that it would help prevent the large arches that the IPF is trying to restrict.

In proposal (3.11), France suggests shortening the break between rounds from 20 minutes to 10 minutes to better accommodate television viewers and spectators.

The Athletes’ Commission proposes (3.14) that if a lifting category consists of more than one group, all groups should have the same referees. Further, that if a change of referees is necessary, that the change should be made between lifts. The reasoning is so that all lifters have the same referees during the same lift.

The NAPF proposes (3.15) changing the wording for Technical Rule 9 to ensure that juries can only over-rule platform officials when a unanimous determination is made. Currently, the wording is: "Only in extreme circumstances when there has been an obvious or blatant mistake on the refereeing will the Jury in consultation with the referees, by majority vote, reverse the decision." Their proposal would change that to a 'unanimous' vote. The current wording was inserted without prior approval by the General Assembly.

Germany proposes (3.16) eliminating the ability to set World Records at National Championships. The proposal cites the high cost of the required drug testing and the cost to transport the required equipment to national events.

The Netherlands proposes (3.17.1) holding World Championship once every two years rather than every year.

In one of the more unique proposals (3.17.2), France asks the General Assembly to eliminate the equipped bench press from powerlifting events, substitute it with the raw bench press, and launch a more lenient single lift equipped bench press division.

In today's situation, bench Press as single lift discipline is, in the IPF, but by product of powerlifting, and has not existence of its own. Hence is it very difficult to get it recognized as a genuine discipline, which it is, to the eyes of local governments and to get financial support from local authorities for international competitions.

In order to turn bench Press as a single-lift discipline recognized as a genuine sport, France proposes to get rid of all supportive shirts for Bench Press in powerlifting, while keeping it for Bench Press as single-lift discipline. This measure would make of these two clearly separate sports. Powerlifting (three-lifts) would remain as the reference discipline, registered for World Games, and Bench Press as single lift could evolve as a more dramatic discipline for which rules could be made less strict (bench shirts could evolve, they could be modified more easily than today, etc...).

Lifters who practice these two disciplines are very often very different, and their way of considering the competition is also different. In powerlifting lifters tend to secure their total whereas in Bench Press as single discipline we witness a lot of bombs because lifters risk their all and rather tend to look for a feat.

Other reasons: Bench Shirts have become so hard to put on that warm-ups between squat and Bench Press are no longer long enough.

Bench Press rules are getting more and more complex to enforce. There are differences in the understanding of rules about the legality of some bench shirts (even between people in charge of referees), and lifters keep trying to alter their shirts to have them fit their morphology. Hence do we propose to get rid of the supportive shirt in Bench Press in threelifts and we lighten the burden of rules for Bench Press as single-lift discipline so as to leave more freedom to benchers and to simplify refereeing rules.

Consequences:
This will lead to the writing of two different set of rules: one for powerlifting and one for Bench Press as single discipline.

This would also imply erasing out current records for both powerlifting (three-lifts and total) and Bench Press (single-lift), or, if archives have been kept, resetting records down to the level they had reached prior to the introduction of supportive material for Bench Press (this would prevent IPF from starting from scratch and thus reduce the flow of WR attempts soon after the implementation of the rule).

Bench Press could also be renamed and be called “equipped Bench Press”, which would make it different from Bench Press as practiced in powerlifting.

The Disciplinary Committee will present a case to the General Assembly for the expulsion of Peruvian IPF affiliate President Lorenzo Quesada for violation of Constitution Article 14.3 which covers defaulting on agreements to compete. The article reads: "If a national federation defaults on a competition engagement with another country or countries, the DC may, in the case of disagreement between them, make a decision or impose penalties if the IPF Constitution or rules have been ignored."

General Assembly agenda (pdf).