Doubts Cloud Korea Olympic Vote

(ATR) The election for a new president of the Korean Olympic Committee may not be valid.

While Ki Heung Lee won the most votes in the Oct. 5 election to the presidency of the Korean Olympic Committee, questions remain about the process.

Lee was the winner of the vote among a field of five candidates.

A court is reviewing whether Lee met the qualifications for office. Lee, the long-time president of the Korea Swimming Federation, resigned from the post just days before the federation was suspended and put under control of the KOC over charges of financial misconduct.

The court is determining whether that resignation made him ineligible to run for the KOC presidency. The challenge was filed ahead of the election with Lee winning provisional approval to run. But with the election over, the tribunal will come to a final decision.

Sources in Korea say Lee resigned the swimming federation presidency to avoid indictments that have been lodged against the federation secretary general.

Around the Rings is told that the IOC communicated with the KOC immediately after the vote to seek clarification of the situation.

The IOC has yet to respond to inquiries from ATR about the KOC election.

A second issue with the Oct. 5 vote involves the delegates certified eligible to vote. From a pool of 15,000 potential voters who were recommended by sports bodies across the country, the KOC randomly selected 1330 of them to vote.

A source with one of the other presidential campaigns tells ATR that as many as 400 of those voters had the same e-mail address, phone numbers and addresses. The source tells ATR the discovery is evidence of manipulation.

The election for the new KOC president comes after a contentious re-write of the statutes of the organization. The new statutes were reviewed by the IOC earlier this year, flagging provisions that appeared to be in conflict with the Olympic Charter. Those provisions, which appeared to give the national government control of the KOC, were removed to win IOC approval. ATR has heard that there are still issues with the statutes.

Since the drafting of the new statutes, the President of Korea has named a new sports minister who took office one month ago.

The IOC as well as Korean sports officials are eager to settle the governance issues involving the KOC with the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang just 15 months away.

Written by Ed Hula.

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