IOC Wraps Up Meetings
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) _ The International Olympic Committee ended its three-day session Wednesday by choosing new executives and expanding to meet the requirements of reforms after the Salt Lake City bribery scandal.
The delegates picked a new vice president, filled out and added new posts to the ruling executive board, and voted in 14 new rank-and-file members, including U.S. Olympic Committee president Bill Hybl and former Kenyan distance running great Kip Keino.
Hybl got the fewest "yes" votes of all the new members, 55 out of 83 valid votes cast. The majority needed was 42.
Hybl was unpopular with some IOC members, who felt he shifted the blame for the Salt Lake City bribery scandal from the USOC to the IOC.
The IOC also chose five "honor members," including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Italian industrialist Giovanni Agnelli.
Thomas Bach, a former German Olympic fencing champion, was elected as one of the IOC's four vice presidents. Bach, who will occupy the post for the next four years, beat Japan's Chiharu Igaya 64-32, with one abstaining vote.
The 46-year-old German has been an IOC member since 1991, and served on the ruling executive board since 1996. He won the fencing team gold medal at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada.
He fills a seat as vice president vacated by Canada's Dick Pound as part of the IOC's system of rotating board members.
The other three IOC vice presidents are Anita DeFrantz of the United States, Keba M'Baye of Senegal and Kevan Gosper of Australia. DeFrantz is the most senior of the four.
Gunilla Lindberg, the head of the Swedish National Olympic Committee, was elected to the expanded 15-member executive board. She becomes the second woman after DeFrantz on the ruling body.
Franco Carraro, a former Rome mayor, got the second post on the board, beating five other candidates in the battle to fill out two vacancies.
The members who lost out were Vitaly Smirnov of Russia, Lambis Nikolaou of Greece, Sam Ramsamy of South Africa, Patrick Hickey of Ireland and Guy Drut of France.
The executive board is being expanded by four members, two of whom were elected Wednesday _ Denis Oswald of Switzerland, president of the International Rowing Federation and chairman of the summer sports federations, and Mario Vazquez Rana, a Mexican media magnate who is chairman of the Association of National Olympic Committees. Both ran unopposed.
Two more members will be elected Sept. 30. One will be an athletes' representative, and there is only one candidate for second _ Ottavio Cinquanta, president of the International Skating Union, as a representative of winter sports.
The expansion of the ruling board and addition of new rank-and-file members were enacted last year after the Salt Lake City scandal.
Of the 14 new members, eight are leaders of national Olympic committees and six are heads of international sports federations.
One of them is Keino, the former Kenyan distance running great who is president of his national Olympic committee. Keino won Olympic gold in the 1,500 meters at the 1968 Mexico Games and the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
(Copyright 2000 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
APTV 09-13-00 0520MDT
