IWF President Tamas Ajan resigns from IOC honourary membership

International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) president Tamas Ajan has resigned as an honourary member of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Executive Board.

The resignation of Ajan has come amid the ongoing investigations of allegations of corruption and cover-ups of doping cases at the IWF.

The allegations of corruption were made in a documentary by German public broadcaster ARD.

"Since the ARD TV show on weightlifting made its unfounded allegations at the beginning of the year, the work to investigate them has proven to be a time-consuming and costly exercise for the IWF," Ajan said in an official statement.

"Ultimately, I continue to believe that the ongoing independent investigation will demonstrate the ARD's allegations to be baseless where they concern the IWF and me personally," he added.

Ajan also said that the focus on the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is of utmost importance, and as a result, he has tendered his resignation.

"Now it is clearly vital that we maintain our focus on the success of weightlifting at Tokyo 2020. For that reason, in order to save the Olympic Movement from negative rumours and subsequent inconvenience, I have decided to resign my IOC Membership after having already served the Olympic Movement during the leadership of no less than four IOC presidents," Ajan said.