The 10th president of the International Olympic Committee will be named this week at a Session in Greece; seven candidates are in the running, including Lord Coe and Swedish-British businessman Johan Eliasch; Philip Barker looks at the media’s role in the election of arguably the most influential figure in world sport…
It is just possible that the most significant sporting contest of 2025 will take place this week in a secret meeting behind closed doors at a Greek leisure resort.
Members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are to elect a successor to German lawyer Thomas Bach as President. Although arguably the most powerful position in world sport, only nine have held office in 130 years.
Unsurprisingly, the British media has focused on Lord Coe’s leadership campaign which like the London 2012 Olympic bid, has been one of high media visibility.
There is a second British candidate, Swedish-born International Skiing Federation (FIS) President Johan Eliasch, Chairman of sporting goods giants Head.
They are the first Britons to stand since Lord Burghley, Marquess of Exeter ran unsuccessfully in the 1960s.
Like Coe, Burghley was an Olympic champion who led a London Organising Committee in 1948, headed World Athletics and the British Olympic Association.
Unlike Coe, Burghley wasn’t terribly keen on the media and described IOC members who spoke to the press out of turn as “unsporting”.
Burghley claimed “the Press always seeks sensationalism.”
People ask me why I want to be the President of the IOC. For me it’s simple. This is not a job, it is a passion.
— Seb Coe (@sebcoe) February 24, 2025
I have spent my whole life in sport, as an athlete, leading sports organisations, delivering sports events and creating commercial partnerships that help sport grow… pic.twitter.com/8DYoprwNSz
Last week, Coe reminded journalists: “I wrote for national newspapers, I’ve been a broadcaster, I recognise how important the media is.
“As I regularly say, the most important sponsor any individual athlete will have and certainly any organisation will have is the media, they are the most important vehicle for you to be able to impart your message and to be able to drive your values.”
A record seven candidates are competing for the role. Only IOC members have a vote.
Unlike the United Nations (UN) and other international bodies, there is not an IOC member in each country and different types of member.
Both Coe and Eliasch attained IOC membership “linked to a function within an International Federation.”
This is also the case for the Frenchman David Lappartient, head of the International Cycling Union and International Gymnastics Federation President Morinari Watanabe of Japan.
The term each would be able to serve as President depends on how long they remain President of their respective International Federation.
Eliasch insisted that “sometimes the media can make very positive contributions to that debate by asking the right questions. So I’m all for having questions, being held accountable, and also answering all the questions you have.”
The electorate also changes with each successive round of voting. The Princess Royal and Sir Hugh Robertson will not be allowed to vote as long as either Eliasch or Coe remain in contention.
Campaign regulations, drawn up by a commission headed by former UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon, stipulate: “Any type of promotion undertaken by the candidate shall respect the other candidates and shall in no way be prejudicial to any other candidate, in particular by avoiding comparisons.”
All have therefore been careful to “tiptoe” around sensitive questions.
Official IOC hustings, held in January, were described as “clandestine auditions” by Matt Lawton in The Times.
Each was allotted 10 minutes for “media interaction” which resembled “speed dating”.
In the last fortnight, the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) organised longer online meetings. 20 minutes of each session were taken up with questions by the AIPS President before approximately 40 minutes was available to international media but this was a useful initiative.
The IOC Session is styled as taking place in Ancient Olympia but only the ceremonial opening will be held there. The election and other business will conducted 100 kilometres away in Costa Navarino.
“To ensure the secrecy of the vote, the election process will take place entirely in camera and will not be broadcast,” regulations stated.
When the final result is known, there won’t be a Vaticanesque puff of white smoke but an announcement by IOC President Thomas Bach.
In The Guardian, Sean Ingle wryly described the process as “so secretive and strange it would make a Vatican cardinal wince”.
Even so, there has been more information available than used to be the case. The majority of each IOC session is now streamed live.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Baron Pierre de Coubertin – the driving force behind the revival of the Olympics – wrote thousands of words about the Olympics but although IOC minutes in his era contained detailed descriptions of fetes, banquets and festivals, there was very little information about the actual discussions.
In the 1950s, American multi-millionaire Avery Brundage was IOC President. He demanded that members “refrain from discussing with the press, or from passing on information concerning the proceedings of the session. By so doing, many misrepresentations of facts will be avoided.”
Even Lord Killanin, once a journalist and President in the 1970s, decreed that voting figures for a host city election should remain confidential.
“If the successor was elected by a marginal vote, this would not show a very united front to the world,” suggested Wajid Ali, the IOC member from Pakistan.
“If the votes were kept secret, the whole organisation could then give support to the victory.”
Over the last century, every elected President had completed at least a decade as an IOC member and served on the Executive Board (EB).
All but one have also held the position of IOC Vice President.
The candidates this week include RB members Prince Feisal al Hussein of Jordan and double swimming gold medallist Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, the youngest in the race.
Originally elected to the Athletes Commission in 2013 and later elevated to individual membership, Bach is said to support her.
Coventry is the first from an African nation and only the second woman to run for President, but then there were no women IOC members at all until 1981.
Many Olympic experts believe the favourite is Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain. He joined the IOC in 2001, the year his father stood down as President, and is the longest-serving of the candidates and a current Vice President.
A banker by profession, he comes across as urbane, switches from his mother tongue to French and English with ease, and has reiterated that he regards the media as vital.
“To have people like you reporting on what we are doing between Games is important for us. We want to be in everybody’s conversation, in principle we have to do whatever is possible to feed you with news,”he said.
Whoever is successful on Thursday, they won’t take office until a formal handing over of the keys in Lausanne on “Olympic Day”, June 23, “to facilitate a smooth transition”.
Since 1980, it has been the practice for the IOC President to live in Lausanne. A suite at the luxurious Palace hotel in the city is placed at their disposal.
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