The Eleiko weightlifting bar is one of the finest bars in the world as well as one of the most expensive. It uses a quality steel with good yield properties and needle bearings in it's rotating sleeves for a very fast rotation. The steel quality aerospace certified. Some lifters feel the knurling on the Ivanko bars is sharper than the Eleiko. Some folks prefer it and some do not.
Flexibility is good.
The bar uses bronze bushings instead of bearings. The owner of Ivanko felt this design is safer as he noticed a high incidence of shoulder and elbow dislocations at the World Championships in the early 1980's when the new Eleiko ball bearing bar was introduced. Having a catagory A approval has nothing to do with bar quality, rather all it means is the bar is approved for use in any IWF sanctioned internation meet such as the World Championships, Pan Am's or Olympic Games. To receive a catagory A sticker of approval requires donating many weightlifting sets to the IWF and paying a substantial certification fee. This significantly increases the cost of the set.