International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has continued its efforts to create a solid financial background for the sport as they try to develop a new marketing policy, IWF president Tamas Ajan said at the annual congress here on Tuesday.

"International Weightlifting Federation announced at the general congress in March that we set the new marketing strategy for the sports and now we can see we are approaching to the goal," Ajan said.

According to Ajan, as opposed to two barbell manufacturing companies in the former marketing cycle, the governing body now have five official suppliers under contract, including Chinese Zhangkong and Double Happiness.

"The IWF just upgraded the partnership with the Adidas company into a new dimension as of 2005. Actually, we have had a traditional relationships with Adidas for several decades," Ajar said.

"Further sponsorship agreements are currently being negotiated and prepared," he added.

While expanding the marketing domain, Ajar insisted that there is one area the IWF cannot, and do not wish to spare money.

"We need to continue implementing our Anti-doping Policy and controls. Not only all our partner-organizations, IOC and WADA, expect this from us, and this is the only way to keep our sport clean," he said.

Source: Xinhua