U.S. Olympic Committee president Larry Probst is one of nine candidates to be added as IOC members come September. The IOC announced the list on the eve of a session to examine 2020 Olympic bids and IOC presidential candidates.
The nominees will be up for election in September — when the 2020 host city and the next IOC president will be chosen — and their inductions are “usually a formality,” according to The Associated Press.
Probst would join three other Americans in the 100-plus group of members — Anita DeFrantz, Jim Easton and Angela Ruggiero — giving the U.S. greater influence within the IOC. Russian Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov made the nine-person nominee list, too.
Probst succeeded Peter Ueberroth as USOC chairman in 2008.
Also notably included was Kenyan Paul Tergat, the 1996 and 2000 Olympic silver medalist in the 10,000 meters and former world-record holder in the marathon. The Sydney 10,000 final, where Tergat placed second to Ethiopian rival Haile Gebrselassie by nine-hundredths of a second, is seen as one of the greatest finishes in Olympic distance-running history.
The other seven nominees were Dagmawit Girmay Berhane (Ethiopia), Mikaela Maria Antonia Cojuangco-Jaworski (Philippines), Camiel Eurlings (Netherlands), Stefan Holm (Sweden, 2004 Olympic high jump champion), Octavian Morariu (Romania) and Bernard Rajzman (Brazil).
The IOC also approved a quartet elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission — Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry, Slovakian shooter Danka Bartekova, French canoeist Tony Estanguet and Australian rower James Tomkins.
