USOC, DeFrantz Aim for EB

(ATR) Anita DeFrantz runs for the IOC Executive Board with full support from the United States Olympic Committee, which is keen to again have a U.S. voice on the influential body.

DeFrantz was a member of the Executive Board from 1992 to 2001, serving her final four years as the first female vice president of the IOC. The U.S. has not had a seat among the decision-making group since Jim Easton of the U.S. failed to win election to the EB in 2006 -- despite serving the previous four years as a vice president.

"There are challenges that will face us as we have new leadership, and I have a great portfolio of experiences and skills to offer," DeFrantz tells Around the Rings from the World Rowing Championships in Chungju, South Korea. "I think it’s an appropriate time for someone who is an athlete, an advocate, an administrator and a leader."

Scott Blackmun, CEO of the USOC, says that since Easton left the Executive Board, the USOC has been able to "take some of the more challenging issues off the table," such as the controversial revenue-sharing issue upon which the USOC and IOC reached agreement last year.

"I think the United States is in a better position than we have been in a while to be a meaningful participant in the worldwide Olympic Movement, and having an Executive Board member will only make that happen more quickly," Blackmun tells ATR.

"We’ve been very supportive of making sure that Anita gets to meet and talk to as many IOC members as possible. She has had a very active travel schedule the last few months and we think that that will bode well for the election."

DeFrantz estimates that she has met with 80 of the 104 current IOC members prior to arrival in Buenos Aires, and hopes to speak to the rest during the IOC Session.

Only nine IOC members have served longer than DeFrantz, who was elected in 1986.

"People know me and I believe will have seen a consistent desire to work for the betterment of the whole and know of my loyalty to the Olympic Movement," DeFrantz says.

The other announced candidates for Executive Board are Tunku Imran of Malaysia, who was elected to the IOC in 2006; Toni Khouri of Lebanon, who was elected in 1995 and was a member of the EB from 2001-06; and Samih Moudallal of Syria who was elected in 1998. Moudallal has also indicated he will run for vice president. John Coates of Australia, whose four-year term on the Executive Board expires this session, is also running for vice president.

The exact number of positions open will be determined as each election unfolds, beginning with president and proceeding through vice president to the Executive Board.

DeFrantz won an Olympic bronze medal in rowing in 1976 and also made the 1980 U.S. Olympic team, gaining renown when she vociferously opposed the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Games.

"I took a stand on behalf of athletes and their right to compete because I believe access to sports is a birthright," she says.

DeFrantz has been involved with the USOC since 1976 (nearly the entire time as a board member), and has been a vice president for FISA, the international rowing federation since 1993. She is the president and member of the Board of Directors of the LA84 Foundation, which manages Southern California's endowment from the 1984Olympic Games.

As a champion for athletes and for women in sport, DeFrantz is the only IOC member to chair the Women and Sport Commission and the Athletes’ Commission Election Committee. She is also a member of the important Juridical and Finance Commissions, as well as the Sport and Law Commission.

DeFrantz says many of the goals set by the Women and Sport Commission in 1996 have substantially been achieved. Women have represented every National Olympic Committee and all of the sports on the Summer Games program now have female athletes. With the election of new members at the end of the Session in Buenos Aires, DeFrantz said female membership on the IOC should reach 23, or 20 percent of the 115 members.

"We’ve come a great distance," she says.

DeFrantz has also had various roles with Olympic organizing committees, beginning with the design and operation of the Olympic Village during the Los Angeles Games. She worked with the Atlanta and Salt Lake City Organizing Committees and was on the IOC coordination commissions for Sydney 2000 and London 2012.

"She understands the system, the people and their needs," Blackmun says. "She’s got special sensitivity to the needs of the athletes, so we think she’s a great candidate. With her significant experience in not only the Olympic Movement but in amateur athletics generally, she is in a position to really add some value."

The U.S. is expected to add a fourth IOC member in Buenos Aires, with USOC chair Larry Probst nominated for election. He would join Easton, who became a member in 1994, and Angela Ruggiero, who began an eight-year term in 2010 as a member of the Athletes Commission.

DeFrantz says that it is the responsibility of IOC members "to make sure that the Games endure and flourish."

She was the first woman to run for IOC President, losing to Jacques Rogge in 2001, and also was defeated in her bid for the Executive Board in 2007. She had originally desired to run for EB in 2006, but withdrew in deference to her colleague Easton, who lost the election.

This time, the U.S. has a unified front as it continues to become more engaged in the Olympic world. DeFrantz has seen the USOC through its rocky times, when it was at odds internally and with the IOC, and was proud when the board changed from a huge, unwieldy group to a more streamlined body.

"Things have been pretty good since we reformed the USOC," she says. "It’s a much smaller, more efficient and effective board."

As DeFrantz campaigns to serve on the most influential board in Olympic sport, she is reminded of her roots and the sense of fairness that still guides her today.

"Much of the reason that I exist as I do," she says, "is that when I was team captain in 1976, by the time the women’s rowing team arrived [at processing] to get our uniforms, there were not any left. It took me a year so that every member of the women’s rowing team got every piece of equipment that the rest of the Olympic team received.

"During that year I learned about the U.S. Olympic Committee."

Written by Karen Rosen.

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