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≡ IOC PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION ≡
Wednesday’s meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Costa Navarino, Greece was busy, but with enough time to allow IOC Presidential candidates to chat with reporters, including TSX correspondent Karen Rosen. Some highlights, listed by candidate, in alphabetical order:
● Kirsty Coventry (ZIM):
“It’s been a busy few months so I’m excited about tomorrow.
“I’m excited. I think it’s the athlete’s spirit kicking back in with all the adrenaline in that final straight of the 200 meters, that last 25 meters. Just staying focused and staying in my lane. I like competition.”
● Prince Feisal Al Hussein (JOR):
“I’m very confident. It’s been a fantastic experience. Some people, I think there’s an old saying, it’s not the destination, but it’s the journey that makes it so fantastic. So I’m confident and we’ll see.
“You all think it’s a tight one, I can’t second-guess what the members are going to do, but I’m very, very confident. I’ve had a lot of very good feedback. People are happy with how I’ve presented my manifesto. And so, at the end of the day, they have to decide. I trust them, that they will do what’s in the best interest of the Olympic Movement and that’s why I think I have a really good chance of winning.”
● David Lappartient (FRA):
“I really believe nobody can predict the result today. It’s clearly more open than ever. We have first of all some good candidates – I hope I’m one of these good candidates – and I of course try to convince my colleagues that my candidature is one of the best. But we’ll have to respect of course, the result. I’m sure that it’s clearly open and nobody can really predict today what will be the result. What is sure is I think there will be many rounds, six is the maximum because we are seven.”
Asked if he thought the vote could go more than three rounds, he observed: “Maybe let’s see, but I think so. I don’t think that one of the candidates to strong enough to secure the majority, but who knows.”
As for where he sees himself right now:
“Still in the race. I will use my sport, bicycle race. I think that it’s riding fast, but I’m in the first part of the [leading] bunch. So I’ve not been dropped from the bunch, so I still believe it’s possible, but of course, you need to take this with to be humble and to know also that you have also solid candidates and I respect my fellow colleagues who are also candidates, but I think I’m one of the potential options to be the winner tomorrow.”
● Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP):
Asked how many votes he has, Samaranch replied, “I have no idea.” He added:
“Well, I’m confident because I’m pretty proud of the work done and the messaging and what we’ve done and how we have been able to communicate.
“But confident in the result is very difficult to be, it’s a really complicated system. More than complicated, it’s a very good system. I mean all the IOC members have one thing which is extraordinarily precious, which is a vote and its confidentiality. That gives each one of us the full independence to decide whatever we think is better. That will only know, it’s only possible to know when the real votes are cast. So we will see.
“I don’t know if I will win or lose votes, but I can promise you I will be working until the very last second, until 3:59:59 tomorrow afternoon.
“I am taking something already, regardless of the result, which is the journey. Yes, they are right. The journey has been an incredible experience for myself, a personal effort that I will always cherish. And now I want to win.”
No comments were available from Britain’s Sebastian Coe or Johan Eliasch or Japan’s Morinari Watanabe.
¶
Honorary IOC member Dick Pound (CAN) is one of the election scrutineers for tomorrow, and was asked about the process of this IOC Presidential election:
“It makes the Vatican conclave look like it’s open house. The deal is that there’s nobody except IOC members in the room and the vote counters. And you can’t bring your iPhone or anything, so they’re going to make sure that nothing gets leaked before it’s announced. …
“We’re lucky in a sense. We’ve got seven people who are prepared to stand up and take on leadership in a very difficult world. And these days it’s not glory. It’s tough. It’s 7 x 24 x 365 work for eight years. So we’re lucky to have people that are willing to stand up and then it’s just a question of who you pick in this difficult time.
“It’s all pretty discreet in the sense these are all colleagues, you know who they are, so you know quite a bit about the ones who are in the race because they’ve been around for a while. I feel for the newer members who may not have seen some of the candidates at work, but that’s the nature of renewal of any organization.”
Asked about vote-switching after the first round, he explained:
“That happens. You’re asked to commit to support in Round 1. After that, things change.
“You don’t know whether your choice stays in, or you see some movement that suggests itself to you [that] you might go in a different direction. I remember there was one member many years ago, we had a four- or five-round election and this member voted for somebody different in every round.”
And the next President will inherit a much different IOC that when Pound joined as a member in 1978:
“Certainly whoever sits in the seat of power is going to have better administrative support than any other president has ever had. [Lord Michael] Killanin was the president when I joined, there were a couple of folks in Chateau de Vidy basically being bossed around by [director general] Monique Berlioux.
“Now they have 500 or 600 people in IOC headquarters, all of whom have very high qualifications, much higher technical and other qualifications than other presidents had at that time. [Avery] Brundage and Killanin were part-time presidents. The first full-time was [Juan Antonio] Samaranch. He was there every day and he knew what was going on on every Olympic issue.”
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