Busan: World weightlifting supremo Tamas Ajan said on Sunday he was confident that the competition at the Asian Games would not be tainted by drug scandals.

Weightlifting, whose future at Olympics and Asian Games was in jeopardy in the 1990s because of rampant drug taking, will be one of the focal points of the Asiad with the Chinese women's team expected to break world records.

The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) avoided exclusion from major Games by introducing strict out of competition testing but the 2000 Sydney Games were still marred by several dope cases.

The whole Bulgarian weightlifting squad was barred from participating after three competitors were stripped of their medals after failing drug tests. One of them, Izabela Dragneva, had made history by taking the first gold medal in women’s weightlifting at the Olympics.

Ajan, the president of the IWF, said that drug testing procedures were constantly being reviewed and made more stringent. "I am really confident that it will be a drug free competition at the Asian Games," said Ajan.

"We have done a lot of work (to clean up the sport) and there has been a great deal of success with our out of competition testing programme." Ajan added that he expected China's women's squad, dubbed the 'Bar Belles' after their debut at the Sydney Olympics, to break world records.

Agencies