International Weightlifting Federation Leaves Budapest

The Acting President of the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF), Ursula Papandrea is expected to move the headquarters of the organization as soon as possible to Lausanne, Switzerland as the relocation is underway from the IWF offices in Budapest, home city of outgoing President Tamás Aján who resigned on allegations of corruption.

“The Executive Board has been clear that the leadership should be permanent in Lausanne as this will truly be our headquarters," she is quoted by the portal insidethegames.biz as saying.

The portal adds that Papandrea, the first woman to lead the sport’s governing body in its 115-year existence, has led the IWF through a turbulent period since late January, the month when allegations of corruption in weightlifting were raised in a German TV documentary. The allegations against Aján, according to a document on the IWF website, concern "financial irregularities, corruption, doping control distribution, doping sample manipulation, doping payment irregularities, doping activities in specific nations and nepotism."

Hungary's Tamás Aján resigned last week after 44 years at the IWF as general secretary and President. He has been granted an ambassadorial role as one of the conditions of his resignation as President.