PARIS - Canadian Adham Sharara was re-elected as president of the International Table Tennis Federation and former Chinese women's team coach Shi Zhihao, was elected as the ITTF vice-president during the world table tennis championships on Wednesday.

Sharara, who has held the position since succeeding Chinese Xu Yinsheng in 1999 to become the sixth ITTF chief, beat his only rival Stefano Bosi of Italy, the chief of European Table Tennis Federation, 149-53 in a vote at the ITTF General Meeting.

An electrical engineer by trade, Cairo-born Sharara was last re-elected in Yokohama, Japan, in 2009.

Sharara represented the Canadian national team from the age of 19, becoming the table tennis technical director for the Quebec region in 1973, before being appointed national technical director of the Canadian Table Tennis Association (CTTA) and the national team coach in 1980.

In the late 1980's, he was appointed as high performance director of the Canadian CTTA and the vice-president of ITTF for North America before climbing the ITTF ladder to take over from Hall of Fame inductee Xu as President.

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