AOC: Australian Olympic Committee President and IOC Vice President John Coates has been ranked 2nd, behind IOC President Thomas Bach, in the highly respected Golden 25 ranking by Around The Rings. The staff of Around the Rings, the world’s most experienced journalistic team dedicated to covering the Olympics, annually rank who they believe will be the most influential people to the Olympic Movement in the upcoming year.
Mr Coates’ high ranking is based on his IOC role in 2015 which includes the responsibility for the preparations for Tokyo 2020 and his continuing role as an IOC Vice President and as head of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
See the profile on Coates from Around The Rings and the full list below:
(ATR) John Coates is a confidante of Thomas Bach and in charge of overseeing Tokyo’s preparations.
Bach’s first appointment was to make Coates the head of the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee. The move reflected the IOC chief’s trust in the head of the Australian Olympic Committee, who is also an IOC Vice President. IOC members tell Around the Rings Bach and Coates have had a close relationship for years and few members are as close to Bach as is Coates.
With Tokyo 2020’s venue plans in limbo, Coates is charged with helping to steer the organizing committee back on track. Key decisions must be made in the first few months of the year.
The 64-year-old chaired the bidding procedure commission for Agenda 2020 that introduced a wave of changes to reduce the complexity of the process and make the Olympics a more attractive proposition. Now he has to help implement some of the reforms.
A lawyer by career, Coates has an important role to play as head of the Court of Arbitration for Sport. WADA’s investigations into doping allegations in Russian sport could end up with some rulings made by sport’s highest court. The ongoing probe into allegations of corruption in the FIFA World Cup bidding process, relating to several current and former FIFA ExCo members, may also result in cases being decided by the CAS.
Coates also chairs the IOC Juridical Commission and is a member of the Rio 2016 coordination commission. The co-comm has a busy year ahead to help ensure Brazilian Olympic chiefs deliver their venues on time and stage successful test events.
2014 ranking: 7
The full list of The Golden 25 for 2015 is:
1. Thomas Bach
2. John Coates
3. Yoshiro Mori / Yang Ho Cho
4. Eduardo Paes / Carlos Nuzman
5. Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah
6. Christophe Dubi / Christophe de Kepper
7. Larry Probst
8. Gilbert Felli
9. Claudia Bokel
10. Nawal El Moutawakel
11. Craig Reedie
12. Patrick Hickey
13. Vladimir Putin
14. Gunilla Lindberg
15. Alexander Zhukov / Jacqueline Barrett
16. Zaiqing Yu
17. Sepp Blatter
18. Marius Vizer / Francesco Ricci Bitti / Gian Franco Kasper
19. Debbie Jevans
20. Anita DeFrantz
21. Sebastian Coe
22. Azad Rahimov
23. Lydia Nsekera
24. Ugur Erdener
25. Richard Pound
Courtesy of Around The Rings
