Moira Lassen, now working as a Ministerial adviser in the north of Canada in Yukon Territory, completes a hat-trick of firsts in the sport in her role alongside fellow technical delegate Matthew Curtain from Britain.

Lassen, 59, was the first woman to take a seat on the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Executive Board in 2013, first woman to chair the IWF Women’s Commission and is now the first woman to be an Olympic Games technical delegate.

She is a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee and is connected within the International Olympic Committee (IOC), having sat on Women in Leadership forums.

Lassen was a technical official at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing when her daughter Jeane lifted for Canada, making them "the first mother and daughter weightlifting team at an Olympic Games", she said.

It was during her time before 2013 that Lassen was involved in "a pivotal moment" for weightlifting.

She has been an international technical official (ITO) for 20 years and sat on two committees from 2005 to 2013, when she worked with current IWF Technical Committee chair Sam Coffa to rewrite the rules.

"My best years were 2009 to 2013 when we had Commissions for technical and competition rules, and we revamped the technical rulebook," Lassen said.

"The most significant change for sure was changing the competition uniform, what you could wear to cover your arms and legs.

"I always felt that was a pivotal moment in our sport, it changed the whole look of it – not just for women of certain religious or cultural beliefs, it has also changed the whole dynamic of what people are wearing.

"I remember that day very well.

"I really enjoyed those years, the way we worked was really co-operative, especially with those who did not have English as their first language and taught me a lot about myself and my way of operating."

While it took time for the rule change to produce results, its legacy can be seen in the huge increase in the popularity of female weightlifting in the Arab world.

Until a few years ago there were no women weightlifters in Saudi Arabia: now there are 700.

Lassen lost her IWF positions in 2017 when Tamás Aján was re-elected for a fifth term as President, three years before his exit after a corruption scandal.

She stood in the elections in Thailand that year in the Antonio Urso camp.

The Italian, who tried for years to highlight anti-doping corruption in the sport, was beaten by Aján again and Lassen was not alone among his supporters in being ousted from the board.

Now Urso is helping to push through reforms in his role as IWF general secretary, to which he was elected last year.

“I have had a meeting with the IWF President [Mohamed Jalood] and others, and everyone seems to be more of a collective; things are changing,” Lassen said.

She will work remotely from the Yukon and will shift to Paris nearer Games time.

Lassen is looking forward to holding one-to-one briefings with all IWF Board members in the coming weeks, as well as meetings in June where she will catch up with Curtain and the Paris 2024 weightlifting competition manager Jacqueline White.

Lassen will also attend a test event in Paris in August.

“I was quite tickled to hear the news and I’m very honoured to be appointed," she told insidethegames from the Yukon, where she is adviser to John Streicker, whose Ministerial responsibilities include energy and mines, tourism and culture, the French Language Services Directorate and more.

“It’s an eclectic group of portfolios, plenty there to keep me busy,” said Lassen, who has followed the sport throughout the six years since she last attended a live weightlifting competition in Australia.

“I followed the preparations for Tokyo and watched the Canadian team and other countries with great enthusiasm.

“I had the Olympic rings, athletes’ names, competition dates and results written on my white board at work, and we got up at 3am to watch… I was there in spirit for Tokyo [2020].”

The highlight for Canada was Maude Charron's gold medal.

On the decision to appoint her for Paris, Lassen said, “I always believed I was strong in the technical field.

“I think the [IWF] Board felt I would be the right person for the job because of my vast experience in multi-sport games, not just in weightlifting but across the board.”

That experience includes weightlifting-specific positions at London 2012 and the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, and wider roles at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa in 2015 and at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, where she was executive operations lead.

Lassen was also general manager of the 2020 Arctic Winter Games in Whitehorse, the Yukon capital, which were cancelled because of COVID-19.

She continues to be involved with the Arctic Winter Games, as operations coordinator for the Arctic Winter Games International Committee.

Asked what her main tasks alongside Curtain would be, with whom she has worked before, Lassen said: “Ensuring all the technical and competition rules are respected.

“There are so many moving parts and functional areas (FAs) in a multi-sport Games that things can get missed or blurred, so the more eyes on it, the better.

“I will be keeping on top of that so we can put on a good event, firstly for the athletes, and also for spectators.

“It’s important also to ensure the ITOs can do their job, and for the IOC and IWF to be contemporary professional organisations.”

Curtain, an IWF Executive Board member who was competition manager at London 2012, said, “Moira’s appointment reflects the ongoing commitment of the IWF Executive Board to tangible cultural and behavioural reform.

“As the first-ever female technical delegate for an Olympic Games, Moira brings to the role a proven track record of event delivery within the Games landscape, managerial leadership across complex projects, and of course a lifelong passion for the Olympic Movement and its positive values."