Olympic Journalist Doyen Moving On

(ATR) After 37 years with Associated Press, Steve Wilson will join the staff of the International Tennis Federation.

Wilson tells Around the Rings he will become director of communications and international relations for the federation beginning Jan. 9.

"After 37 years, leaving AP was a difficult decision to make," Wilson says. His career with AP has taken him from India, where he covered a hijacking, to Rome, and then to London as European Sports Editor since 1979.

Easily the doyen of English-language Olympics reporters, he’s covered every Olympics since 1984, along with nearly every meeting of the IOC Executive Board, and countless dozens of other meetings and sports events that line the calendar. Wilson is the current president of the Olympic Journalists Association.

Wilson says his love of tennis, which he plays, was a driving factor in the decision to head to the ITF. As part of his AP assignments, Wilson has regularly covered Wimbledon and the French Open. Now he says he expects to be seeing a lot more of the sport and says he is looking forward to being part of the ITF team for the Tokyo Olympics.

Wilson arrives at the federation in January along with another notable new hire, Kelly Fairweather as COO. A respected sports administrator most recently at the International Field Hockey Federation, the South African native has done a stint as sports director at the IOC and worked with WADA.

The selection of Fairweather and Wilson would seem to signal the solidifying of the team of David Haggerty, now heading into the second year as president of the ITF. Like other Olympic federations, tennis faces issues involving anti-doping, the threat of match fixing and development of the sport for new generations.

This week Wilson will cover his final EB for AP, though he says he will still be around at Olympic events, just in a different capacity. He’ll also celebrate his 59th birthday, an event which often has coincided with the end of the year meeting of the IOC board. He will not be celebrating last weekend’s loss of his beloved Washington Redskins to the Arizona Cardinals.

Written by Ed Hula.

What's the world's best sport city?Vote here!