International Boxing Association (AIBA) President CK Wu has been backed to enter the race to become the next International Olympic Committee (IOC) President by his world governing body’s ruling Executive Committee.
The 66-year-old from Taiwan is one of the longest serving current IOC members having entered in 1988 under the recommendation of former President Juan Antonio Samaranch while he joined the organization’s ruling Executive Board at the 124th IOC Session in London last July.
Wu has long been considered the dark-horse to become the next IOC President when incumbent Jacques Rogge steps down at the next IOC Session in Buenos Aires on September 10.
And the likelihood of him standing for the post has increased dramatically now that AIBA has given its leader full endorsement to challenge for the most powerful position in sport.
“We are pleased to share with you the upbeat emotions and unanimous voices of all AIBA Executive Committee members who strongly recommended President Wu to run for the International Olympic Committee Presidency at the Extraordinary EC Meeting held on May 11 in Astana,” said AIBA executive director Ho Kim in a letter to the Olympic boxing family.
“The EC members have been made aware that many media/press and IOC colleagues of Dr. Ching-Kuo Wu have named him in past several months as one of the potential candidates.
“Therefore, the EC members believe it would be a great pride and honor for both AIBA and the sport of boxing if the President had any chance to represent the international Olympic Movement.
“Therefore, each member expressed the rationales of recommending the President to participate in the election and requested him to enhance the Olympic Movement the way he evolutionally transformed boxing and successfully reformed AIBA.
“Each vice-president who is also President of an AIBA Confederation spoke about his beliefs in the President’s strong and credible leadership and expressed his confidence that this leadership will definitely be needed in the current IOC and Olympic Movement.
“We believe the President will accept this invaluable support from all AIBA EC members and make his final announcement whether or not to run for next IOC President very shortly.
“We thank you very much for your on-going support.”
Wu has been AIBA President since 2006 and has helped to dramatically rid the sport of corruption since replacing the controversial Anwar Chowdhry of Pakistan in the role – leading to arguably the most successfully Olympic boxing competition ever at London 2012.
Wu, a multimillionaire architect who helped design and build Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom, also received huge plaudits last month when he unveiled the Samaranch Memorial in Tianjin, China to commemorate the memory and legacy of the former IOC President.
The AIBA President conceived, founded and designed the Samaranch Memorial and nearly 30 IOC members attended the unveiling in Tianjin, including Rogge, who praised Wu for his initiative.
Wu is likely to officially announce later this month that he will stand for the position of IOC President.
If he does, he will follow Germany’s Thomas Bach and Singapore’s Ng Ser Miang in announcing his candidacy for the role.
Bach announced last week that he would be entering the race at a press conference in Frankfurt while Ng will do the same tomorrow at a press conference in Paris.
The other candidates set to follow are Richard Carrión, the head of the IOC’s Finance and Audit Commissions from Puerto Rico, and Sergey Bubka, the vice-president of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) from Ukraine.
Contact the writer of this story at tom.degun@insidethegames.biz. To follow him on Twitter click here. Inside the Games is an online blog of the London Organizing Committee that staged the 2012 London Games. The blog continues to cover issues that are important to the Olympic Movement. This article is reprinted here with permission of the blog editors.