● From our sister site, TheSportsExaminer.com ●
Since Monday’s announcement by the International Olympic Committee of seven candidates for President, the calls and e-mails have come in, non-stop.
Who’s the favorite? Who’s going to win?
Answer: no one knows, and anyone who tells you they do know should be subject to a doping test right away.
What is true is that questions for each candidate are beginning to be raised, and there is high anticipation for the publication of the candidate plan statements. For now, however, only the questions.
First, it’s worth checking out the election arithmetic, which in the case of the IOC voting process, gets a little complicated:
● At present, there are 111 members of the IOC, who break down geographically this way:
● 46: Europe
● 21: Asia
● 19: Americas
● 18: Africa
● 7: Oceania
But, two influential members – John Coates (AUS) and Dr. Ugur Erdener (TUR) – will retire to become Honorary Members at the end of 2024, so the total comes down to 109.
Further, the IOC’s protocol has been to keep members from a country which has a candidate from voting, and there are candidates from six countries: France, Great Britain (2), Jordan, Japan, Spain and Zimbabwe. Assuming this is maintained, a total of 16 members are impacted – in the first round – so removing them leaves 93 members (meaning a first-ballot majority would be 47):
● 34: Europe (4 candidates)
● 19: Americas (0 candidates)
● 17: Africa (1 candidate)
● 17: Asia (2 candidates)
● 6: Oceania (0 candidates)
Those numbers could influence the lobbying efforts of the candidates, who are, alphabetically:
● Prince Feisal Al Hussein (JOR): 60, elected personally to the IOC in 2010.
Observed: Al Hussein is the younger brother of King Abdullah II, sometimes stands in for him at protocol functions and is a retired Lt. General of the Jordanian Armed Forces. A graduate of Brown University in the U.S., he is seen as independent and has been an IOC Executive Board member since 2019. He has been deeply involved in the IOC’s work against harassment and abuse and for safeguarding, and is the founder and Chair of Generations For Peace, one of two peace-through-sport organizations recognized by the IOC; it uses sport to engage children and youth to promote sustainable conflict transformation at the grassroots level.
It is also true that anywhere from a quarter to a half of Jordan’s population are of Palestinian origin or are naturalized Palestinian refugees, and an expansion of the current Israel-Hamas and Israel-Hezbollah conflicts could engulf the country – which has a peace treaty with Israel – in the future, putting Al Hussein in an impossible political situation if he were IOC President.
● Sebastian Coe (GBR): 67, elected to the IOC in 2020, tied to his presidency of World Athletics.
Observed: the four-time Olympic medalist in track & field (2-2-0) in 1980-84, he has an insanely high profile, as the Chair of the highly-successful London 2012 Olympic organizing committee, as well as the head of World Athletics. He has detractors – the Russians can’t stand him – but he is unafraid to lead. His use of Olympic television money to pay the Paris gold medalists $50,000, the first time an International Federation has done this, irritated many fellow IF chiefs, including multiple IOC members.
Coe is a consummate politician and sources whisper he has been quietly courting potential votes for more than a year already. But at 67 (68 on 29 September), he would need the IOC membership not only to elect him President, but also to then (1) elect him as an individual member and (2) then give him a four-year membership extension to 2030.
Under the current rules, Coe would appear to also need a change to the Olympic Charter to allow him to serve out a full, eight-year term to 2033.
● Kirsty Coventry (ZIM): 41, elected to the IOC in 2013 as an athlete, personally in 2021.
Observed: A seven-time Olympic medalist in swimming in 2004 and 2008 (2-4-1), she is the current Minister of Youth, Sports, Arts and Recreation in Zimbabwe. She graduated from Auburn University in the U.S., and provided exemplary leadership as Chair of the IOC Athletes’ Commission from 2018-21.
She was clearly being positioned as a favorite by IOC chief Thomas Bach (GER), with high-profile roles on the IOC’s Tokyo 2020 Coordination Commission, as Chair of the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games Coordination Commission and as Chair of the Brisbane 2032 Coordination Commission.
At 41, she has no age issues, and would be the first woman head of the IOC, in keeping with Bach’s goals for gender equity. But in a world drifting toward war more than peace, is she the right candidate now? She would be the youngest IOC President since founder Pierre de Coubertin (FRA), 33 when he took over in 1896.
● Johan Eliasch (GBR): 62, elected to the IOC in 2024, tied to his presidency of the International Ski & Snowboard Federation (FIS).
Observed: Eliasch’s candidacy was the big surprise, as it was not expected. The billionaire former chief executive of the sporting goods giant HEAD from 1995-2021, he is now its non-executive Chair.
Eliasch was initially elected as the head of the FIS in 2021 to fill the remainder of the term of retired Gian-Franco Kasper (SUI), and then was elected to a full term in 2022. He was elected to the IOC as the FIS President on 24 July of this year by a 64-17 margin. The unusually high 17 votes against him was far higher than any of the other seven members elected, with 1-2-3-4-4-4-7 votes against.
New to the IOC, but highly experienced in political circles in Great Britain, Eliasch is not to be dismissed or ignored. But his age is also an issue, and he would need to be elected as an individual member and would require an age-extension vote to complete an eight-year first term.
Even as non-executive Chair of HEAD, questions of divestiture and other conflicts of interest may be raised about his IOC candidature.
● David Lappartient (FRA): 51, elected to the IOC in 2022, tied to his presidency of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI).
Observed: A new member only in 2022, Lappartient’s stock has skyrocketed in the past year. On his watch as the two-term head of the UCI, the new all-disciplines UCI Cycling World Championships in Glasgow was a significant success in 2023, and as President of the National Olympic Committee of France, he helped calm a fractious political environment and then shepherd the underdog French Alps bid to become host of the Olympic Winter Games in 2030.
Most importantly, Bach has relied on Lappartient as the IOC’s liaison with the e-sports community as the Chair of the IOC Esports and Gaming Liaison Group, and in 2023, as Chair of the Esports Commission. Bach said in his address renouncing an extension of his term that the digital revolution is the future; he selected Lappartient as the IOC’s lead with the electronic sports community. That’s significant.
An engineer and surveyor before becoming a sports administrator, he is described as devoted and highly professional. Those are promising qualities and at 51, age is not an issue for him, but he would need to be elected as an individual member.
● Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP): 64, elected personally to the IOC in 2001.
Observed: This is the son of Juan Antonio Samaranch, the transformational IOC President from 1980-2001. He has been involved in international sport for decades, but with a professional career in financial management. He earned an undergrad degree in engineering from Barcelona University, and a Masters of Business Administration from New York University.
Samaranch Jr. was the head of the IOC’s Coordination Commission for the Beijing 2022 Winter Games and has deep experience in China, founding the Samaranch Foundation in 2012 to promote sport in China and positive relations between China and Spain.
He has also been a Vice President of the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne, helping to keep it on the Olympic program, and served as an IOC Vice President from 2016-2020 and from 2022 to the present. He is the consummate insider, personable and savvy, and has said he wants to continue the Bach reforms and vision of the IOC as a values-based promoter of sport that have been highly successful already.
His age, requiring an extension to allow him to finish a first term, is against him, but he is not to be underestimated. If the IOC members do not coalesce quickly around another candidate, he will be well positioned as a candidate everyone can deal with … for one term.
● Morinari Watanabe (JPN): 65, elected to the IOC in 2018, as president of the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG).
Observed: Watanabe would need to have the IOC members convert him to individual membership and give him an age extension to complete one eight-year term. He is the two-term head of the FIG and is up for a third-term in a contested election on 25 October 2024; if he should lose, he would lose his IOC membership.
He has been the Chair of the IOC’s Boxing Task Force for Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, both successfully held. However, his tenure in gymnastics has raised questions, as he has apologized for the technical mess over the Paris 2024 women’s Floor Exercise bronze medal situation, an area fully within the federation’s control.
Moreover, although gymnastics is one of the top three federations for distribution of IOC television money, it pays no prize money at all at any of its World Championships, unlike both World Aquatics and World Athletics, which both pay millions to athletes.
A much clearer judgment will come once the candidates file their campaign statements, which should be coming soon. The election will take place at the IOC Session in Greece from 18-21 March. Candidate presentations will take place from 20-24 January, and the new President will take over in June of 2025.
There’s no favorite, only estimates and opinions and publication does not make facts out of either. This is a process, but one truth is that 74 of the 111 current members have been elected on Bach’s watch. He won’t come out publicly in favor of any candidate, but if he sends a signal, it will be very, very carefully considered.
~ Rich Perelman
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