London bookmakers William Hill have installed Germany’s long-serving International Olympic Committee (IOC) vice-president Thomas Bach as clear favorite to succeed Jacques Rogge as the new leader of the organization ahead of the election in Buenos Aires on Sept. 10.
The 59-year-old lawyer, a fencing gold medalist in the 1976 Montreal Games, is priced at evens.
But, coming up fast on the rails in the Presidential Stakes is Singaporean Ser Miang Ng, 63.
The former yachtsman is now a joint second favorite at 4-1 with Puerto Rican banker Richard Carrion, 60.
The bookies suggest Ng, architect of the inaugural Summer Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010, could be the dark horse in the six-strong field.
The Ukrainian pole vault legend Sergey Bubka, 49, a late runner, is a their 10-1 outsider with Swiss Denis Oswald, 65, and 66-year-old International Boxing Association (AIBA) President C K Wu, from Taiwan, jointly priced at 6-1.
At 4-9 on, Tokyo is strong favorite to host the 2020 Olympic and Paralympics Games, ahead Istanbul at 3-1 and Madrid 9-2, when the decision is made at the IOC Session in the Argentinian capital on September 7
William Hilll also suggest under-threat wrestling looks certain to retain its place in the Olympic sports program, making it 4-7 on to get IOC approval over squash at 7-4 with baseball-softball given little chance at 8-1 when the decision is made on September 8.
Inside the Games is a blog of the London Organizing Committee that helped put on the 2012 Summer Olympics. This article is reprinted here with permission of the authors of the blog.