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IOC

Aussie to chair IOC group for Tokyo Games

Australian John Coates was on Wednesday named as chairman of the coordination commission for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, the Lausanne-based International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced.

Aussie to chair IOC group for Tokyo Games
John Coates. Photo: Sarah Ewart

The 63-year-old Coates is head of the Australian Olympic Committee and also vice-president of the IOC, as well as being president of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
   
IOC president Thomas Bach also named ex-Namibian sprinter Frank Fredericks as chairman of the coordination commission for the Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018.
   
Bach added that Arne Ljungqvist, Gerhard Heiberg and Hein Verbruggen will continue in their roles as chairmen of the Medical Commission, Marketing Commission and OBS, respectively, until after the Sochi Olympic Winter Games in 2014 "to ensure continuity in the preparations".
   
The terms of all three had been set to expire after the IOC Session in Buenos Aires last month.
   
The IOC said that Puerto Rican Richard Carrion, who was beaten by Bach in the vote for president, would "continue to lead the TV negotiations already under way outside Europe until the Sochi 2014 Games" despite his decision to resign from his different positions within the IOC.
   
Carrion will be a big loss to the higher echelons of the IOC as it was he who negotiated the record $4.38 billion (3.3 billion euros) broadcasting deal with American broadcaster NBC.
   
Carrion, 60, said in a statement sent to AFP that Bach deserved to have the scope to choose his own people for key posts.
   
"It has been an extraordinary privilege and experience to have chaired the IOC Finance Commission for the past 11 years and to have fulfilled agreements that have helped secure a secure a solid financial foundation for the Olympic Movement," said the Puerto Rican banker, who finished second in the presidential ballot garnering a highly creditable 29 votes.
   
"I have always thought that a new leader needs room to set a course and select his team," Carrion said.

"As such, I submitted my resignation for President Bach's consideration," he said.

"I look forward to continuing my service as an IOC member, and help in any way with the new leadership's transition."
   
Bach asked IOC member Ser Miang Ng to chair the next meeting of the Finance Commission in December, the IOC said.

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RUSSIA

Russian athletes lose appeal over Olympics ban

Forty-seven Russians implicated in doping lost a last-minute court bid to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics on Friday, just hours before the opening ceremony.

Russian athletes lose appeal over Olympics ban
Photo: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP
The applicants, who included Korean-born speed skater Victor An, had asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn an International Olympic Committee decision not to invite them to Pyeongchang.
   
“The applications filed by Russian athletes and coaches have been dismissed,” the CAS said in a statement.
   
The Russian situation has proved highly contentious in the build-up to Pyeongchang, after their team was banned but a certain number of “clean” Russian athletes were allowed to take part as neutrals.
   
Fifteen of those who lost their bids on Friday were among a group of 28 who controversially had life bans from the Olympics overturned last week by CAS, which cited insufficient evidence.
  
The other 32, including An, biathlon gold medallist Anton Shipulin and Sergei Ustyugov, a cross-country skiing world champion, were omitted from the list of Russians invited to Pyeongchang.
   
“In its decisions, the CAS arbitrators have considered that the process created by the IOC to establish an invitation list of Russian athletes to compete as Olympic Athletes from Russia (OAR) could not be described as a sanction but rather as an eligibility decision,” CAS said.
   
However, the CAS decision may not be the end of the matter. A source close to the IOC has told AFP that the 47 Russians have also lodged a case with a Swiss civil court in Lausanne.
   
A spokesman for the neutral Russian team, the 'Olympic Athletes from Russia', declined to comment when approached by AFP.