IOC elections: candidates continue to lobby undecided voters

A new president of the IOC will be elected Thursday, just the 10th leader in its 131-year history after one of the most open Olympic elections in decades.

The winner will get an eight-year mandate with key issues including steering the Olympics on a smooth path in politics and sports toward the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles and picking a host for the 2036 edition. That could go to India or the Middle East for the first time.

Voting by about 100 eligible International Olympic Committee members is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. local time (1400 GMT). The result should be known within 30 minutes.

Seven IOC members are on the ballot chasing an absolute majority of votes for victory at a resort hotel near the site of Ancient Olympia.

The strongest candidates in a hard-to-call contest seem to be IOC vice president Juan Antonio Samaranch and a pair of two-time Olympic gold medalists, Sebastian Coe and Kirsty Coventry.

Also in the race are Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan and three presidents of sports governing bodies: Johan Eliasch of skiing, cycling’s David Lappartient and Morinari Watanabe of gymnastics.

Coventry, the 41-year-old sports minister of Zimbabwe, would be the first woman and the first African to lead the IOC.

“Let’s create some change, let’s make sure that happens,” she said Wednesday.

Coventry has long been seen as the preferred successor of outgoing president Thomas Bach, who formally leaves office on Olympic Day, June 23, having reached the maximum 12 years in office.

An emotional Bach was feted Wednesday on the first day of the IOC’s annual meeting, getting lavish praise and the title of honorary president for life.

He will hand over a financially secure IOC, on track to earn more than $8 billion in revenue through the 2028 LA Olympics, and with a slate of future hosts through 2034: in Italy, the United States, France, Australia and the U.S. again, when the Winter Games return to Salt Lake City.

A signature Bach policy also has been gender parity, with equal quotas of men and women athletes at the 2024 Paris Olympics and giving a better balance of female members of the IOC and the executive board he chairs, which now has seven women among its 15 members, including Coventry.

The next president can oversee the IOC making a statement choice for its host for the 2036 Summer Games

“There is one and one only,” Samaranch said Wednesday when asked of challenges ahead. “We must concentrate (on) successful and relevant Olympic Games. The rest comes with success in the games.”

If the Spanish financier wins, he will follow his father, also Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was the IOC’s seventh president from 1980 to 2001.

The voters in the exclusive invited club of IOC members include royal family members, former lawmakers and diplomats, business leaders, sports officials and Olympic athletes. Even an Oscar-winning actress, Michelle Yeoh.

They will vote Thursday without hearing further presentations from the candidates in an election that should swing on a discreet network of friendships and alliances largely forged out of sight.