IOC Session wraps up with election of new Members
The 138th Session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) concluded its meeting in Tokyo today by electing six athletes as IOC Members.
Earlier in the week, athletes competing in the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 elected four athletes as members of the IOC Athletes’ Commission (AC) for a term that will end at LA28: Pau Gasol Sáez (Spain, basketball), Maja Włoszczowska (Poland, cycling), Federica Pellegrini (Italy, swimming) and Yuki Ota (Japan, fencing). All four athletes were put forward by the IOC Executive Board (EB) for election by the IOC Session as IOC Members and were elected today.
In accordance with the IOC AC regulations and in consultation with the outgoing IOC AC Chair, Kirsty Coventry, the IOC President had appointed Humphrey Kayange (Kenya, rugby) to the IOC AC in order to have a better geographical balance. Following this decision, the IOC EB had also proposed him to the Session for election as an IOC Member, in order to ensure that there is an athlete representative from Africa amongst the IOC Members.
In addition, the IOC EB had agreed to propose recently appointed IOC AC member Astrid Uhrenholdt Jacobsen (Norway, cross-country skiing) for election as an IOC Member, in line with the AC regulations. Jacobsen joined the AC earlier this year following the resignation of Kikkan Randall, and will remain on the Commission until the end of her term, which will be at the end of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.
Both Kayange and Jacobsen were elected as IOC Members by the Session today.
In addition, the IOC Session elected the new Chair of the IOC AC, Emma Terho, as an EB member.
The outgoing members of the IOC Athletes’ Commission are:
- Kirsty Coventry (her status was previously changed to Independent Individual IOC Member, which means that she will remain an IOC Member)
- Danka Bartekova
- Tony Estanguet
- James Tomkins OAM
- Stefan Holm
Today’s elections bring the number of IOC Members to 103 by the end of today.
HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark will leave as an IOC Member and will become an Honorary Member. Prince Frederik had announced in June that he would give up his IOC membership to focus on his duties in Denmark. His resignation was accepted by the IOC.
Amendments to the Olympic Charter
During its proceedings, the IOC Session also adopted the following amendments to the Olympic Charter, as recommended by the IOC EB:
- Allow for up to seven IOC Members to be elected in special cases without a nationality or National Olympic Committee (NOC) requirement.
- Clarify that the IOC Session may remove any sport from the programme of the Olympic Games if, among other violations, the relevant International Federation (IF) governing such sport does not comply with the decisions of the IOC EB, or if the relevant IF acts in a manner likely to tarnish the reputation of the Olympic Movement.
- Reinforce the principle that nobody is entitled, as of right, to an accreditation, as well as the principle that the granting and removal of an accreditation is at the IOC’s full discretion.
- Align the roll of honour representations to reflect current practice.
- Allow the IOC EB to suspend a sport, event or discipline from the programme of the Olympic Games.