(ATR) Seven candidates are vying for three council seats at the top table of Olympic summer sports.
The Association of Summer Olympic Sports Federations on Tuesday announced the group of IF presidents who were nominated by the April 22 deadline.
Bidding to secure council seats are Kim Anderson of World Sailing, International Triathlon Union chief Marisol Casado, Ingmar De Vos of the International Equestrian Federation, International Shooting Sport Federation leader Vladimir Lisin, José Perurena, head of the International Canoe Federation, Jean-Christophe Rolland of World Rowing and Morinari Watanabe, president of the International Gymnastics Federation.
The ASOIF General Assembly convening on May 7 on the sidelines of SportAccord in Gold Coast, Australia, will vote to elect three council members.
The council seats are vacant because the terms of Casado and Perurena have come to an end. The position of Patrick Baumann, who died suddenly during the Buenos Aires Youth Olympics, also needs to be filled.
Francesco Ricci Bitti, president of ASOIF, chairs the council which is composed of six members who are elected for four-year mandates.
One of the main items on the ASOIF assembly agenda at SportAccord is discussion of the 46-page Future of Global Sport document that was published in February. The report sets out the challenges facing the 33 summer Olympic federations, urging them to adapt and innovate or risk losing some of their influence in world sport.
Laying out a vision for sport over the next 20 years, the report includes 10 recommendations for the summer sports and ASOIF to adopt in order to stay relevant. Amid calls for federations to be more innovative, entrepreneurial, commercially-driven and collaborative, plenty of debate among IF leaders is expected at the Gold Coast meeting.
An ASOIF source tells Around the Rings that the Future of Global Sport report has been "received positively among our member IFs and in the wider Olympic and sports movement".
President Ricci Bitti presented the key findings and recommendations to stakeholders in the EU community at the annual EU Sport Forum in Bucharest earlier this month.
Ricci Bitti has asked the summer sports to closely study the document and come forward with their views and ideas. "This is a live document that IFs can consider and contribute. At SportAccord we will focus on this, to go deeper on the future role of IFs," he told reporters in a February conference call.
Governance issues impacting the IFs will be another major topic of discussion at the ASOIF general assembly. The umbrella summer sports body’s governance task force is currently reviewing and revising an additional questionnaire for IFs to complete. The third IF governance assessment will be conducted between the third quarter of 2019 and start of 2020. A clearer picture of the governance challenges facing individual IFs will emerge in the report that is due to be published at the ASOIF General Assembly in 2020 in Beijing.
Reported by Mark Bisson
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