OBS: the mentioned letter and response from Mr. Sweeney will also be revealed later.
Dear Amy,
I have received the e-mail in which you communicated the results of my teammates referee exams and, considering the extremely impolite previous response from Mike Sweeney to my (polite) letter pointing out problems at the Worlds, I decided that our relationship with the WPC has run its course.
In that e-mail, you said that Hugo Quinteiro was excellent but Carlos Daniel Llosa did not pass, needing more work.
I will announce it publicly and also what I am about to reveal here: due to the fact that Hugo Quinteiro has very little mastery of English, Carlos Daniel Llosa and him worked together for the written test and Carlos actually instructed Hugo, being much more experienced as a referee. In other words, their tests were the same. As for the practical test, we know for a fact that Carlos did better because the examiner showed him his results.
We also know that you are aware that Hugo has double citizenship – Brazilian and Portuguese – and that Portugal is a strategic country for the WPC.
Therefore, you have left no room for doubt that the results of the test were political, and not technical. This, again, together with the poorly articulated, rude and illogical letter from Mike Sweeney to me (in which he didn’t even use my name, starting the letter with “good day you” – I’m not “you”: I’m Dr. Marilia Coutinho), made it clear that we are not dealing with a serious powerlifting organization anymore.
I took time and documented each point where there were rule problems at the Worlds: Mr. Sweeney was unable to respond to any. He preferred to just insult me.
Before that, the bigot response I got from him about an inquiry I made concerning the request from a transgender lifter also showed that the WPC is not prepared to handle technical problems seriously.
Now: the referee exam was simply shameful. You showed that you really are not committed to the sport. I am surprised you did not compare their tests, otherwise you would know I would reveal this ridiculous situation.
I am sorry that his has ended in such a shameful situation. The only reason I was keeping the WPC was that Brazil is a country where powerlifting is run by people with very little ethics or commitment to the sport. Corruption and a “parallel economy” are known to rule. In other words, small time crooks and mafias. These are the people that will take over the WPC representation. I hoped to keep the WPC from their hands a little longer, give the fact that it is a powerful and large organization. I give up: let the mafias have fun with it. I will remain faithful to my principles.
Yours,
Marilia Coutinho, Ph.D.