Sharara determined to step down as ITTF president

The Canadian, who took charge of the ITTF since 1999, plans to step down Sept 1 and will be replaced by deputy president Thomas Weikert, the head of the German Table Tennis Association, reports Xinhua.

"I'm not stopping. What I am doing is changing, going from one position, one responsibility to a different," said Sharara. "I've been the president for 15 years. It's a lot of work. But for personal reasons, family reasons, also some professional reasons, I'd like to change my direction."

"I would like now to move to another stage, perhaps try to join some international sports groups, maybe one day in the future as the member of the IOC," said Sharara at the ITTF meeting held during the 2014 World Table Tennis Championship.

"To do that it's impossible by remaining very activate inside the ITTF as president. The work of ITTF requires a lot of time everyday with the stuff, with the delegates and with the members. You have to be 24 hours almost working.

"Now I feel very confident that we have a very strong group. The deputy president and vice presidents are very strong. They had very good experience. I feel confident that I can leave this responsibility to them and I can move into a new function."

Sharara thought that his new role should be in international sports bodies.

"Maybe a year from now or so, I will start to be nominated to another international sports body. This is the real reason," said Sharara.

"For the ITTF, it is very good to have a representative from table tennis inside the IOC and other big international bodies. Joining the IOC as a member is to help the image of table tennis. We never had a member from the ITTF."

Sharara is very proud of himself being the ITTF president for the last 15 years.

"Fifteen years is a long time. Now I feel a little bit tired but I can say it was a very exciting 15 years. I met some fantastic people. We set some very difficult targets and very difficult objectives to achieve for the ITTF and for table tennis," he said.

"We just introduced two new members to the ITTF this morning and now we have 220 association members. For 1999, we had 180. Forty new members came to the ITTF in the 15-year period. For me it is a very big compliment," said Sharara.