The trains arrive on time in the sports movement. Three international summer Olympic sports federations – canoeing, fencing and modern pentathlon – held their elective general assembly last weekend, between Baku, Moscow and Frankfurt. For all three, the same scenario: the outgoing president was seeking a new mandate, without facing the slightest opposition. The three leaders were re-elected. Logical and predictable.
Alisher Usmanov (photo above), the Russian billionaire who arrived like a messiah at the head of the International Fencing Federation (FIE) in 2008, after the Beijing Games, had little to fear from the elective general assembly organized in Moscow, on his lands. In front of him, a boulevard. Without the slightest competitor in sight, the vote was a formality. In its press release, published on the evening of the vote, the FIE did not even consider it useful to give the numerical result. Alisher Usmanov takes over for 4 years. A third mandate which could see him push the door of the FIE headquarters in Lausanne more regularly than in the past, the Russian having decided during the autumn to take up permanent residence in Switzerland.
For world fencing, the presence of Alisher Usmanov at the head of the FIE sounds like a blessing. According to several sources, the billionaire has paid nearly 35 million euros from his own pocket into the coffers of the international organization in recent years.
During the elective general assembly in Moscow, the FIE also awarded the organization of the senior world fencing championships in 2019 to Budapest, Hungary, candidate city for the 2024 Games. It accepted a new national federation, Haiti. Finally, its leaders proceeded with the election of the members of the executive commission, the decision-making body which includes the president of the French Federation, Isabelle Lamour.
Jose Perurena (above), the Spanish leader, arrived in Baku, host city of the 36th general assembly of the International Canoe Federation (ICF), with the same confidence in the immediate future. He was alone in the race. The most comfortable of situations, especially in a sport and an organization very protected from business, bad rumors and the smell of doping. The Spaniard was elected without a shadow of a doubt for a third consecutive term as president of the ICF, a federation that the Extraordinary Congress endowed in the middle of the week with new governance (the presidents of the continental confederations now sit on the executive committee).
Around Jose Perurena, three vice-presidents: the Argentine Cécilia Farias, the French Tony Estanguet, the German Thomas Konietzko. Like the Spaniard, Tony Estanguet is back for 4 years at the ICF. Finally, the organization is taking a good step towards a form of parity: men and women were represented in equal proportion among the candidates for the three vice-president positions.
Klaus Schormann (above) also reigns supreme over his international federation, the UIPM. The German was elected in Frankfurt, on his home soil, for a new mandate, the 7th, as president of modern pentathlon. Delegates present at the organization's 68th Congress were initially expected to take a formal vote to extend the lease of the German doctor, first inducted in 1993. But given the total lack of suspense, Klaus Schormann being the only candidate , they changed the agenda and decided to do it the old way. At the age of 70, Klaus Schormann was re-elected by acclamation, with the representatives of the 80 countries present in Frankfurt giving him a standing ovation.
For the rest, the UIPM has expanded its governance. Two new leaders, the Kazakh Imashev Berik and the Mexican Juan Manzo Oranegui, joining the trio of three re-elected vice-presidents: Juan Antonio Samaranch (Spain), Joël Bouzou (France), and Viacheslav Aminov (Russia). Finally, the international organization gave itself a much more feminine touch by integrating two Olympians into its Council, the Egyptian Aya Medany (president of the athletes' commission), and the Australian Kitty Chiller (chef de mission at the Olympic Games). Rio 2016). They join the Chinese Shiny Fang, general secretary of the UIPM, within the decision-making body of the world modern pentathlon.
