The son of former Olympics chief Juan Antonio Samaranch was elected a vice-president of the International Olympic Committee yesterday, returning a name synonymous with the Games’ rise to prominence.
Samaranch junior, who has the same name as his late father, was voted in with little fuss alongside Turkey’s Ugur Erdener, filling two vacant, four-year terms, at an IOC session in Rio de Janeiro.
Samaranch’s father, who liked to be referred to as “His Excellency”, served as IOC president for 21 years until 2001, ushering in an era of fat profits but also, critics say, opening the door to corruption.
Samaranch junior, 56, has been an IOC member since the year his father stepped down and is a vice-president of the International Modern Pentathlon Union, alongside a career in the finance industry.
“This represents a lot to me. Being an IOC member is a lifetime dream that came true — being able to work as a VP (vice-president) is another dream,” Samaranch said.
Ukrainian pole vault great Sergey Bubka, beaten last year by Sebastian Coe to the leadership of the world athletics body, was among four members to win a new four-year term on the IOC executive board.
Singapore’s Ng Ser Miang, who lost out to Thomas Bach in the race for the IOC presidency in 2013, returned to the board, and Gian-Franco Kasper and Angelo Ruggiero joined it for the first time.
Earlier South African film director Anant Singh and Anita Ambani, the wife of India’s richest man, were elected to eight-year terms as IOC members.
Ambani, owner of the Mumbai Indians IPL cricket team, said her focus would be on promoting grassroots sports in India, rather than pushing for cricket’s inclusion in the Olympics.
“I’m working really with multi-sports in India. We want to encourage many other games besides cricket in India like football and basketball and let children be exposed to all kinds of games,” she told AFP.
“So I’m looking forward to building a movement in sports for children in India.”
International bobsleigh chief Ivo Ferriani and Finnish former race-walker Sari Essayah were among six others who also joined the body, swelling its membership to 98.
Voting took place a day before the start of the Rio Olympics and at the end of a three-day session which added five sports – baseball-softball, surfing, skateboarding, climbing, and karate – to the Tokyo 2020 programme.
IOC members also backed the executive board’s decision to allow Russia to enter a team at the Rio Olympics, despite the discovery of a state-orchestrated plot to dupe dope-testers by switching samples at laboratories.