Lausanne, May 15 (IANS): The International Olympics Committee (IOC) has postponed the Athletes' Commission election by an year. The election was initially due to take place in the summer of 2020 in Tokyo, with 30 candidates from 30 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and 19 summer sports running for four available positions.
With Tokyo Olympics postponed till next year in the wake of coronavirus pandemic, the IOC Executive Board (EB) also decided to move up the timeline of the Athletes' Commission election.
"The EB was of the unanimous opinion that, at this critical time, we need full representation of the athletes within the commission. The athletes' voice at this moment is extremely important, and we should not have any vacancies," IOC President Thomas Bach said in a statement on Thursday.
The four athletes who will be elected by their peers will replace the following members: IOC AC Chair Kirsty Coventry (Zimbabwe), Vice-Chair Danka Bartekova (Slovakia), Tony Estanguet (France) and James Tomkins (Australia). Additionally, the term of office for one of the AC's appointed members, Stefan Holm (Sweden), will expire at the same time in 2021.
The IOC AC is composed of a maximum of 23 members (12 members directly elected by their peers and a maximum of 11 appointed), who serve a term of eight years.
The vote is held at every Olympic Games, with four members elected at each Summer Games, and two at each Winter Games.