On December 8, a meeting of the leadership and coaching staff of the Azerbaijan Weightlifting Federation (AZE WF) was held in the Conference hall of AAAF Park Residential Complex. The meeting was attended by the vice-presidents of the AZE WF -Tofig Heydarov and Ruslan Khanverdiyev, General Secretary Rizvan Rasulov, as well as national team coaches and athletes who were distinguished in the Azerbaijani Cup held on December 2-3, 2017. The main objective was to evaluate the work done in the last year, to appoint a new coaching staff and identify athletes selected to the next training-camps.
Vice-president – Tofig Heydarov participated in the meeting. He announced that he was leaving his post as the head coach of national weightlifting teams. The official representative of the organization stated that he had taken this step due to the large number of personal work, at the same time, to give a chance to the young generation, but he would remain as vice president.
The decision of the AZE WF president Jahangir Askerov was also announced. He accepted the application of Tofig Heydarov, the former head coach of national weightlifting teams, and gave an order on appointment of Asif Mammadov to this post. New coach was wished success in his work, and was credited with the trust and confidence of the federation.
It will be soon informed about the names of the senior coaches who will help Asif Mammadov in the national team consisting of youth, juniors, men and women.
New head coach Asif Mammadov shared his views on the appointment with the official website of the federation for the first time: “To be honest, this assignment was unexpected for me. It is both pleasing and proud, but also a great responsibility. Leadership of the Federation gave me great confidence with this decision. Therefore, I express my deep gratitude. As for our plans, we start almost everything again. There is a lot of work to do, and we have to be ready for it. As you know, weightlifting has a doping problem. We are confident that we need to work hard to overcome these difficulties. As a federation, we are seriously fighting against doping, and we will support the process as a coaching staff, we will do our best for the final resolution of the problem. We have a lot of work, and from now, we start training-camps and bring our preparations to the highest level. ” The expert said that the next training camp will be held at the central base of the AAAF Park Residential Complex, on December 9-29, and this process will continue uninterruptedly until the end of 2018.
Asif Jahan oghlu Mammadov was born in Ismayilli, on August 9, 1980. Weightlifting trainings started at the Children-Youth Sports School in Ismayilli region. In the short time, he won the title of Azerbaijan champion among youth. For a long time, he has performed as a sportsman in Azerbaijan team consisting of youth, junior and senior. He has repeatedly been the champion of Azerbaijan, holder of the Azerbaijan cup, and the participant of international competitions. He is the Sports Master of Azerbaijan Republic on Weightlifting.
In 1998 he studied at the Azerbaijan State Academy of Physical Culture and Sport at the major of weightlifting and graduated successfully in 2002.Then he was in the real military service. In 2008, after completing his athlete career, he started working as a coach at Ismayilli UGIM. In 2010, he was brought in as an assistant coach in Azerbaijan Youth Weightlifting team. Since then, he has worked continuously in our national team. He was the head coach of National Youth team among boys. From December 28, 2016 till today, he has worked as a senior coach of National Youth team among boys.
He is the 1st category weightlifting coach.
His private student-Mahammad Mammadli is a silver medalist of 2013 European Youth Championship, bronze medalist of 2017 European Juniors Championship in clean and jerk, participant of many other international tournaments, winner of Republic Championships and Cups. During his time at the national team, his apprentices won the European title, renewed records and got numerous medals. The most successful year has been 2017. This year, our national team led by Asif Mammadov took the 9th place in the overall rankings in World Youth Championship, in Thailand and won a license for the Youth Olympic Games to be held in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2018 . However, on September, the team led by him was 2nd in the point account and was the 1st in the number of medals in U-15 European Championship, in Prishtina, Kosovo.
