International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) President Tamas Ajan slashed the world's top anti-doping official on Friday, saying John Fahey's threat to expell weightlifting from the Olympics is "extremely regrettable."

"I can't accept this kind of statement," said the IWF chief.

Ajan also said in a written statement that Fahey's statement has been "bringing our sport into disrepute".

WADA president Fahey said on Sunday in a media interview that sports including weightlifting and cycling with a history of drug scandals risked being barred from the Olympics, "if the cheating is continued and continued to be exposed."

Ajan said till now, no doping cases have been found at in the Beijing Olympic weightlifting.

"We are very proud for this," he told a press conference.

He said between January 1 and July 15 this year, the IWF carried out more than 1,200 in and out-of-competition tests in 104 countries and regions to ensure the lifters to be clean in the Beijing Games.

The entire Bulgarian weightlifting team and 11 Greek lifters were excluded from the Games after failing drugs tests.

Ajan said more doping cases were exposed because of IWF's unrelenting anti-doping efforts.

He said he's quite "optimistic that not only weightlifting, but also cycling will be on the Olympic program" in the future.

(Xinhua News Agency August 15, 2008)