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≡ IOC PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ≡
While Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry was elected to be the 10th President of the International Olympic Committee on the first round of voting, there were also six others who did not win.
TSX correspondent Karen Rosen tracked some of them down at the IOC Session in Costa Navarino, Greece.
● Sebastian Coe (GBR: World Athletics President):
“I’m really pleased for Kirsty. We’ve got an athlete at the head of the organization. She and I actually spoke about that a couple of weeks ago in Frankfurt and we both agreed that it was really important and I’m very pleased for her.
“That’s a very good result for the athletes and sport at heart.
“Look, actually the process I found absolutely fascinating because I’ve been doing this like the other candidates for the best part of six months and I’ve had some of the broadest and longest conversations with many of the members and many organizations outside of the Movement, which has also been important. So I have a very clear view which was clearly I hope expressed in the manifesto, sports front and first and athletes at the heart of the decision-making process, so it was a prospectus I put forward.”
Asked about his own disappointing result, Coe observed:
“It’s very early to start poring over the numbers, but I think it’s pretty clear that the athletes and in particular the female members voted for her in very big numbers in the first round.”
“[I]t’s important an athlete is the head of the movement. It will have the confidence of the athletes. Clearly athletes voted in large numbers together in particular with many of the female membership and that’s what it is. That’s important. I wish her well. It’s a massive, massive job.”
And now?
“Tomorrow I’m off to China for the World Indoor Athletics Championship, so it’s actually important for me to be back in the sport.
“I’m not putting on a brave face. I’m fine. Clearly, it’s a disappointing result, but that’s what happens when you go into elections.”
● Johan Eliasch (GBR: International Ski & Snowboard President):
“I think we have the right person in the right place. We had a big, big first-round victory and now I’m sure the membership made a choice. It was very clear and she deserved the victory.”
Asked about whether Coventry will adopt some of his sustainability concepts, Eliasch said, “I hope so for the better of the movement. There are many good ideas that have come out of this.”
He was asked if he wasted his time in being a candidate: “The opposite. This has given winter sport the opportunity to have a stronger voice in the movement than normal, but very important topics on the agenda to make sure that we stay ahead of the curve.”
● David Lappartient (FRA: Union Cycliste Internationale President):
“It’s first the vote of the members, the member has to make the decision and they are alone in front of the box. [IOC President] Thomas Bach can have some feelings. It’s always the same in an election, you can have a preferred candidate, but it was the choice finally of all the members, so we have to respect this choice. I don’t think Thomas Bach put 49 ballots himself in the box.”
Asked about the impact of having a woman as President, Lappartient noted:
“I think it’s a strong message because she’s the first female. The first female to enter the IOC, if I’m correct, is 1981. So a little bit more than 40 years after, a female is president of the IOC. So that’s a nice message. Gender equality was clearly top priority in our agenda and with this I think we achieved this, so that’s great.”
As for the women members voting en masse for Coventry:
“For sure, not all of them, but some of them. Yes, clearly a female and also athletes I think also. But if you want to be elected, you have to unite people, so she was the best one to do this. So well done.”
He expressed his disappointment in receiving only four votes this way: “Yes, for sure. I was expecting more, but it’s life. So we have to accept the choice of our colleagues.”
● Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP):
“It’s a very clear victory. It’s not divisive. We’ll all rally behind her. It’s good and the messaging, the presidency goes out of Europe, the president goes to a woman, the president goes to a different generation and we’ll all be there behind her. The result is a very good result. It’s better than a split result.”
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