IFA highlights anti-doping testing at European and world championships

The International Federation of Armwrestling used its July 20 update to put doping tests at the center of the European and world championship calendar. The IFA Anti-Doping Actions page made clear that elite starts are not being treated as a clean-sport formality, but as events where testing, eligibility and trust move together.

A related IFA page, Clean Sport is Our Mission, names Grzegorz Nowotarski as the federation’s director of doping control. That matters because the message is no longer just that doping is banned. It is that the federation has a named official tied to enforcement as the sport moves through its busiest stretch of international competition.

The IFA’s posture sits on top of a longer rulebook history. The World Armwrestling Federation adopted its anti-doping rules at congress in September 2014, based on the 2015 World Anti-Doping Code. The IFA followed with its own anti-doping rules on 27 May 2022, the same day they came into force. For athletes chasing European and world titles, that means the testing framework now reaches into the events that define the season, not just into paperwork before or after them.

WAF’s anti-doping materials also show how the sport has tried to build compliance into the system itself. The federation says education is the key to preventing doping and directs participants toward anti-doping education and therapeutic use exemption guidance. It also uses WADA’s ADAMS system as a clearing house for anti-doping data, including storage and information sharing with WADA, national anti-doping organizations and national federations.

That administrative footprint is backed by public enforcement tools. WAF maintains a Sanctioned Athletes page and a Search for Suspended Athletes tool, and its anti-doping archive includes Anti-Doping Worlds 2015 Results, which listed sanctions announced on 17 May 2016. Its disciplinary decisions page was updated on 30 September 2024, a reminder that armwrestling’s clean-sport record has not been built in theory alone.

The timing of the IFA’s July 20 message also lands alongside current WADA standards. The World Anti-Doping Code page is marked in force with a publication date of 6 July 2026, and the 2026 Prohibited List took effect on 1 January 2026. Against that backdrop, the IFA’s emphasis on testing at Europeans and Worlds reads less like routine reassurance and more like a direct statement about who can be trusted on the table and who will not be allowed to compete.