SINGAPORE — Despite pulling out all the stops, the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) has failed in its last-ditch attempt to have its sport included at next year’s SEA Games in Singapore (June 5 to June 16).

This is the first time weightlifting has been excluded from the biennial event since its inauguration as the Southeast Asian Peninsular (SEAP) Games 55 years ago in Bangkok.

The IWF sent a delegation of heavyweights, including Vice-Presidents Ong Poh Eng of Malaysia and Thailand’s Intarat Yodbangtoey, to make its appeal to the 2015 SEA Games Organising Committee (SGOC) yesterday.

Ong said they were also authorised by IWF President Tamas Ajan to offer to pay the estimated S$1 million — which include the cost of bringing in equipment and flying in officials — to run the competition.

But their efforts came to naught after meeting SGOC President Tan Eng Liang, who said it was too late to consider the sport’s inclusion for the Games.

When contacted, Tan said they had been transparent in selecting the final list of sports, and each were picked according to the scores on weightage given to merits such as athlete development and management capability. “We were fair to all and also received appeals from the international federations of sports like karate, beach volleyball and chess,” he said. “They made similar offers to pay for costs in order to be included for next year’s Games, but we’ve reached the limit of 36 sports that we can host. It won’t be fair to drop one of them to make way for another sport.”

In December, the SGOC first submitted weightlifting among a list of sports for the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) of the SEA Games Federation to consider, but it was not among the 30 the NOCs confirmed. An appeal was made later for the SGOC to include 10 other sports, but weightlifting failed to make the six that the NOCs approved on Feb 15.

Ong, who is also President of the Malaysian and Commonwealth weightlifting federations, said it was a blow for the sport here. In its appeal, the IWF delegation held up weightlifting as having a special place in Singapore sport as Tan Howe Liang had won the country’s first Olympic medal with a silver at the 1960 Games in Rome.

“It is a pity because weightlifting would have made a big impact among your youngsters at next year’s Games,” Ong said, noting Thailand has offered to train Singapore lifters for the Games for free.

“The reason we are here and are willing to give whatever it takes in our appeal to the SGOC is because the sport in Singapore has been making steady progress and we don’t want it to disappear again. If we don’t do this, we will totally kill the sport in Singapore.”

Weightlifting drifted into obscurity after the 1993 Games before it was revived under the new Singapore Weightlifting Federations (SWF) eight years later.

Its inclusion in the 2010 Youth Olympic Games (YOG) drew new and younger athletes to the sport, and there are now more than 200 who have taken up weightlifting.

Said SWF President Tom Liaw: “When we took over 13 years ago, we had only one athlete and one coach, Howe Liang. Before the YOG, we had fewer than 20.”

After an absence of 24 years, Singapore weightlifting will make an appearance at this year’s Commonwealth Games from July 23 to Aug 24, with Lewis Chua qualifying for the over 105kg class two weeks ago.