ANOC Meets in London, Avoids Debate Over Vazquez Rana Succession

(ATR) British Olympic Association chairman Colin Moynihan tells Around the Rings that the ANOC Executive Council was buoyed by progress on the London 2012 project – but the contentious succession plan for president Mario Vazquez Rana was not discussed.

"Not at all. The focus is on the agenda that ANOC has in front of it ... we’ve got the Moscow General Assembly, we’ve got the sports ministers meeting, the London Games and then the Sochi Games," Moynihan told ATR at the Park Plaza Westminster Hotel on Monday.

But another participant at the meeting who would only speak on background,tells ATR that while a succession plan was not discussed, undisclosed peripheral issues provoked what weretermed as "heated discussions".

With Vazquez Rana turning 80 in 2012, the issue of how to handle his mandatory retirement from the IOC remains a major talking point ahead of ANOC's general assembly in Moscow in April.

The first issue iswho will take up his seat on the IOC Executive Board as the ANOC representative. European Olympic Committees president Patrick Hickey emerged as the nominee from December's ANOC council meeting in Lausanne.

Secondly, is who will eventually succeed Vazquez Rana when his term at ANOC ends in 2015, a post he can holdregardless of his IOC status. That question is answered with the establishment of a new position in the ANOC heirarchy, a first vice president. That new post was also approved in December along with Hickey's nomination,intendedto designate an ANOC heir apparent.

The putative candidate for that new vice presidency is Sheikh Ahmad Al Sabah, president of the Olympic Council of Asia.

Whether these changes will be presented as a fait acompli in Moscow - orto besubject to a vote by the 204 members of ANOC - is still not confirmed.

The unidentified ANOC Council member sayshis colleagues hopethat lingering issues can be resolved at the ANOC Assembly in April. He says ANOC leaders are trying to keep their differences from being played out in the media. Hickey, for example, declined to comment after the ANOC meeting.

Moynihan was eager to endorse the work of the incumbent ANOC chief.

"Mister [Vazquez] Rana is doing a very good job. He’s under halfway through his current tenure, so no discussion on succession planning just on the challenges and issues that face the movement," Moynihan said.

Coe Thanks Olympic Chiefs

Commenting on London 2012 preparations, Moynihan said that LOCOG chairman Sebastian Coe and several of his team updated the 30-member council on the build-up to the Games, which open in 158 days.

"Clearly as stakeholders in London 2012 we’re very pleased with the progress being taken. There were very few questions [about the Olympics], it was a really comprehensive update," he said.

Moynihan added: "We covered every aspect and it was an opportunity to thank ANOC and the NOC presidents because there’s been very strong cooperation between National Olympic Committees, the ANOC executive, Debbie Jevans [LOCOG director of sport] and her team and Seb in preparing for London.

"So Seb took that opportunity as I did last night at dinner and again today to really thank the ANOC which I think has been a case study in how to have a close cooperation between 205 NOCs and the organizing committee."

Moynihan also used Monday's meeting to give a full presentation on the forthcoming 2nd World Olympic Sports Convention 2012 in Moscow, which is being held on the sidelines of the April 10 to 18 ANOC gathering.

"We’ve got a very high level of interest from ministers around the world and senior officials involved in government," Moynihan revealed.

"We’ve finalized the preparation for the ministers convention – it's an exciting and comprehensive agenda and takes a major step forward from Acapulco [last year's inaugural meeting]. So from that perspective [Monday's executive council] was a very successful meeting."

AOC Funding Request

The Australian Olympic Committee will ask the federal government to increase its sport funding for the 2016 Olympics, following an assessment of the team’s performance in London.

Nick Green, Australia’s chef de mission for the Games, was quoted by The Australian reiterating concerns that the government funding taps being cutoff will negatively impact Olympic performance.

"We are being out-funded and out-spent in our endeavors to pursue excellence in the sporting field at the moment," Green said.

"We have had consistently high expectations of our team.

"Our goal of being in the top five has never deviated for many Olympic teams.

"What is happening at the moment is that we are not winning medals in the volume of sports we have previously and that could be because we are being out-spent on high performance."

Australian Olympic officials have repeatedly asked the government to increase funding for high-performance sport in the lead-up to the Games.

"After the London Games we will look at trying to continue to redress the imbalance in the funding of sport and to increase our funding for Rio," Green added.

NOC Anniversary

The Angolan Olympic Committee celebrated its 33rd anniversary on Feb. 17.

The theme for the event was "Towards the London Olympic Games in 2012".

Angolan Olympians have represented their country at the Moscow, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney, Athens and Beijing Games.

Reported by Christian Radnedge, Ed Hula and Mark Bisson

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