The democratic exercise takes a strange turn in the Olympic movement. Host cities for the Games are chosen without a timetable or electoral process. And presidential elections in international bodies most often boil down to a plebiscite written in advance, with a single candidate presenting himself to the voters.
A handful of international federations must go to the polls in the coming weeks to choose a president. With a single exception, the result is already known. Only one applicant. Not the slightest competition. Zero suspense.
Saturday November 6, Jean-Christophe Rolland will be reappointed for a third term as president of the International Rowing Federation (World Rowing). The Frenchman is the only candidate for the supreme position. He will return for four more years, with the certainty of leading the discipline at the Paris 2024 Games.
Elected for the first time in 2013, Jean-Christophe Rolland then beat two rivals, the Canadian Trica Smith and the Australian John Boultbee, to succeed the Swiss Denis Oswald as president of the body, then called FISA. He has since been re-elected without opposition in 2017 for a second term. Saturday November 6, his re-election will take place in the same climate of serenity.
Three weeks later, the International Fencing Federation (FIE) will in turn have an elective congress where the scenario is known before its opening. Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, 68, will be re-elected in Lausanne for a fourth term. He too is the only candidate. A habit. Winner in 2008 of an election where he faced the incumbent, Frenchman René Roch, Alisher Usmanov has since stifled the competition. He was re-elected without opposition in 2012 and then in 2016. With a new four-year mandate acquired in advance, the Russian is guaranteed to chair the FIE for a minimum lease of 17 years.
More surprising is the case of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). Its current president, the German Thomas Weikert, has chosen to put his thumbs up. Contested within his own executive committee, put in a minority and deprived of his decision-making power, he surrendered. He will not seek a new mandate during the elective general assembly, planned on the sidelines of the Individual World Championships in Houston (United States), which are to be held from November 23 to 29, 2021.
The withdrawal of the incumbent should, logically, encourage vocations. He frees the land. It opens up the field of possibilities. However, surprise, the election for the presidency of the ITTF is a foregone conclusion. The list of candidates comes down to just one name: the Swede Petra Sörling. In the absence of competition, at the end of the month she will become the first woman to chair the ITTF since the creation of the body. She will join the Spaniard Marisol Casado (triathlon), and another Swede, Annika Sörenstam (golf), in the very closed circle of women presidents of an international federation of a summer Olympic sport.
The only exception to this long series of plebiscites is the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG). The presidential election, scheduled for Saturday November 6 in Antalya, Turkey, will be played between two men. In the outgoing camp, announced favorite, the Japanese Morinari Watanabe (photo above). He is seeking a second term. Opposite, in the corner of the challenger, the Azerbaijani Farid Gayibov. Anything but a stooge, since he chairs the European Gymnastics Confederation (European Gymnastics).
The FIG elective congress should have been held in October 2020. But it was postponed for a year due to the health crisis. Morinari Watanabe, also a member of the IOC (he notably directed the task force called to organize the qualifications and the boxing tournament for the Tokyo Games after the suspension of the AIBA), therefore won a year of mandate.
Curiously, winter sports escape the phenomenon. Two of the major bodies in Olympic disciplines, the international ski federations (FIS) and ice hockey federations (IIHF), have experienced a change in governance in recent months.
In both cases, the outgoing president did not represent himself: Gian Franco Kasper at the FIS, René Fasel at the IIHF. In both cases, applicants rushed to the door. Four candidates for the presidency of the FIS, five to lead the IIHF. The victory of the Swede Johan Eliasch at the head of skiing was expected, that of the Frenchman Luc Tardif at the helm of ice hockey was a little less so. The voters have decided. At least they had a choice.
