The season of IOC elections

Bach was one of six presidential candidates which included the president of FISA, the World Rowing Federation, Denis Oswald. Also running was Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico, Sergey Bubka of Ukraine, Ser Miang Ng of Singapore and Ching-kuo Wu of Chinese Taipei.

Voted by IOC members in a secret ballot the results saw Thomas Bach win in the second round of voting by a comfortable majority.  Bach, 59, a lawyer from Germany is an Olympic Champion in fencing from the 1976 Olympic Games. Bach comes to the presidential role having been an IOC Vice-President from 2000 to 2004 and then from 2006 to 2013.  Bach has been an IOC member since 1996.

FISA’s former Vice-President, Anita L. DeFrantz of the United States, was voted onto the IOC Executive Board.  Rowing Olympic medallist DeFrantz has been FISA Vice-President since 1993. At the FISA Congress earlier this month DeFrantz was replaced as Vice-President by Tricia Smith (Canada). DeFrantz served on the IOC Executive Board from 1992 to 2001 as well as IOC Vice-President from 1997 to 2001.

The IOC Executive Board has 15 members and includes the newly voted IOC Vice-President John Coates of Australia. Coates is FISA’s continental representative for Oceania and he has been a FISA council member since 1992. Coates began his rowing pursuit as a high school coxswain before becoming a coach. Coates has been a member of the IOC Executive Board since 2009.

For more information: http://www.olympic.org/news/thomas-bach-elected-new-ioc-president/208945 and http://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-session-votes-on-executive-board-positions/208952.