(ATR) With the predictability of the sun rising every day, the presidents of three international federations are reelected for new four year terms, all of them unopposed.
Jose Perurena was elected to a third term at the International Canoe Federation. The ICF voted in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Alishar Usmanov was voted a third term by the International Fencing Federation. The FIE Congress was held in Moscow.
Klaus Schormann was elected by acclamation to a seventh term at the UIPM congress in Frankfurt.
Perurena, 71, an Olympian for Spain at the 1968 Games, is serving his final weeks as an IOC member as he’s reached the retirement age of 70. Perurena is also president of the International World Games Association. The ICF Congress ratified a change in governance that includes representation of the continental federations for the sport. Also winning reelection as one of three vice presidents was Tony Estanguet, vice chair of the Paris 2024 Olympic bid. Estanguet is an IOC member by virtue of his election in 2012 to the IOC Athletes Commission.
Alisher Usmanov, 63, may be the wealthiest Olympic federation president, his estimated $14.7 billion worth ranked 58th in the annual index from Forbes magazine. Uzbek born, Moscow educated and now a Lausanne resident, Usmanov has built his wealth in the steel industry. Besides his interestin the fencing federation, Usmanov is one of the owners of EPL team Arsenal. Reports say that Usmanov has used as much as $40 million of his own money to help support the operations of the FIE, one of the smaller Olympic federations.
The FIE Congress in Moscow also awarded the 2019 Senior Fencing Championships to 2024 Olympic bidder Budapest.
Klaus Schormann, 70, has served as president of the modern pentathlon since 1993, the second-longest tenure foran Olympic sport president. The title for longest serving goes to International Shooting Sport Federation president Olegario Vazquez Rana, first elected president in 1980.
The vote for Schormann was held a day earlier than planned as a tribute.
"I am more than pleased and very honored that the assembly has chosen to elect me as president a day before the election was supposed to take place, Schormann said.
"It gives me a very strong feeling to do my best with all my energy. It's never a question of age, it's a question of energy and I am very invigorated by this vote of confidence," he said.
Among three vice presidents reelected at the Frankfurt meeting were Juan Antonio Samaranch, IOC member in Spain and Joël Bouzou of France, the president of the World Olympians Association. Australian Kitty Chiller, chef de mission in Rio de Janeiro, was elected to the UIPM Executive Board.
Written by Ed Hula.
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