The IOC confirms that four candidates will run for the two vice president positions on the executive board in elections at the Session in Copenhagen Friday.
Ser Miang Ng of Singapore, Mario Pescante of Italy, C.K. Wu of Chinese Taipei and Samih Moudallal of Syria are vying for the two available spots.
They would replace Chiharu Igaya of Japan and Lambis Nikolaou of Greece, who are stepping down Friday after completing their terms as VPs on the IOC’s rule-making body.
The new vice presidents would join Germany’s Thomas Bach and China’s Zaiqing Yu at the IOC’s top table.
Explaining his reasons for seeking one of the coveted VP positions, Moudallal told Around the Rings: “I want to be an Executive Board member to represent the Middle East. There are members from Europe. There are members from East Asia, but nobody from my part of the world.”
No new candidates for the two open seats on the EB were announced by the Thursday afternoon deadline for declaring candidacies. It leaves Australian John Coates, Craig Reedie of Great Britain and Patrick Hickey of Ireland to contest the election. Moudallal of Syria may also run if not elected as a vice president.
Hickey seeks the post to deliver influence on the EB from his position as President of the European Olympic Committees.
Reedie hopes to represent the interests of London 2012, while John Coates is seeking a return to an Australian on the EB, familiar with needs of Oceania.
The headlines Friday will come when IOC President Jacques Rogge sets out his vision for another four-year term. He will be re-elected because there are no challengers to his presidency. His term would last until 2013.
Rogge, who was elected president in 2001, told Around the Rings in August he will focus his efforts on Games quality, improving the Olympic program, developing the Youth Olympic Games project he initiated in 2007, and the fight against doping.
Rogge has said he plans to retire in 2013, saying it would not be proper to stay on as an IOC member. “I think the first quality of a past president is to shut up,” he told ATR.
New IOC members will also be elected Friday. Six candidates are seeking to join the ranks of the IOC membership.
The nominees are: Richard Peterkin, president of the St. Lucia Olympic Committee; Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark; Habu Ahmed Gumel, president of the Nigerian Olympic Committee; Habib Abdul Nabi Macki from Oman, a vice president of the Olympic Council of Asia; Lydia Nsekera, president of the Burundi Football Association; and Sweden’s Goran Petersson, president of the International Sailing Federation.
The election of the Crown Prince will be big news in Denmark. More than two dozen reporters are expected to converge on the Bella Center to watch the vote for Frederick Friday morning. A press conference is scheduled for the afternoon following the press conference of IOC President Jacques Rogge.
With reporting from Mark Bisson
Últimas Noticias
Utah’s Olympic venues an integral part of the equation as Salt Lake City seeks a Winter Games encore
IOC president tells Olympic Movement “we will again have safe and secure Olympic Games” in Beijing
Boxing’s place in the Olympics remains in peril as IOC still unhappy with the state of AIBA’s reform efforts
IOC president details Olympic community efforts to get Afghans out of danger after Taliban return to power
North Korea suspended by IOC for failing to participate in Tokyo though its athletes could still take part in Beijing 2022
