Carlos Nuzman Surrenders South America Post

(ATR) Brazilian Olympic veteran Carlos Nuzman departs from his final international sports leadership posting.

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Last weekend in Rio de Janeiro Nuzman presided over an extraordinary Congress for ODESUR, the organization that stages the quadrennial South American Games. The Congress elected Paraguayan Camilo Jorge Pérez as the new president of the South American Sports Organization, taking over the final two years of Nuzman’s presidential term. He was first elected ODESUR president in 2003.

Shortly after his ill-fated bid in April to win the presidency of the Pan American Sports Organization, Nuzman declared he would end his mandate as ODESUR president two years early.

Nuzman, 75, remains president of the Brazilian Olympic Committee, but this will be his final term, ending in 2020. He was first elected in 1995. Most frequently mentioned as a successor is former Brazilian Judo Federation president Paulo Wanderley, who is a vice president at the Brazilian committee. An IOC member until retiring at age 70 in 2012, Nuzman is now an honorary member.

Nuzman is still president of the Rio 2016 organizing committee. The committee is supposed to be dissolved at some time but it still has an estimated $32 million of outstanding debt remaining from the Olympics.

Just hours after his election by acclamation as the new ODESUR chief, Perez flew to Miami to participate in this week’s meeting of the Executive Committee of Pan Am Sports, the continental organization representing the 41 NOCs of the Americas.

"I willcomplete Nuzman's two-year term of office, and then I plan to stand for re-election to complete all the projects I hope to achieve in improving the sport of the region," Perez tells Around the Rings.

Camilo Pérez confirms to ATR that he was the only candidate for the ODESUR presidency.

He clarified that Baltazar Medina, the president of the Colombia NOC, at one time had intentions to run "but he did not, he is part of our Executive, he is the treasurer, and we are going to do a good job together."

He did not go into details of what those "circumstances" were.

Pérez will preside over his first multidisciplinary event in the region on September 29 to inaugurate the II South American Youth Games in Santiago, Chile.

The next South American Games are set for 2018 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, "for which we will try to maintain the opening date in May," said Perez.

Perez says he believes that PASO "is working in a very executive way" under new president Nevin Ilic of Chile .

Perez did not hide his concern about the slow pace of construction in Lima for the 2019 Pan American Games in 2018.

"This organizing committee is a little more agile," he says about the work of Carlos Neuhaus who took over as CEO late last year.

"Although there are uncertainties, we have faith that things will go well," he said.

Reported in Miami by Miguel Hernandez.

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