With a record 83.86 percent of athletes at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics voting, Ema Terho from Finland (ice hockey) and Kikkan Randall from the United States (cross country skiing) were elected members of the IOC Athlete’s Commission. Following approval by the IOC Session, to take place on the last day of the Games, Terho and Randall will become Commission and IOC Members for an eight-year term, representing their fellow Olympians on the IOC Athletes’ Commission, which serves as a link between the athletes and the IOC. They will replace current IOC Athletes’ Commission Chair Angela Ruggiero and Adam Pengilly, who were elected at the 2010 Winter Olympic in Vancouver.
Terho represented Finland at five Olympic Winter Games, winning bronze at Nagano 1998 and Vancouver 2010. Randall is currently competing in her fifth Winter Games in PyeongChang. Earlier this week, she won the USA’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in cross-country skiing, after topping the podium in the team sprint event alongside Jessica Diggins. Terho was elected with 1,045 votes, followed by Randall with 831 votes. All 2,930 athletes competing in PyeongChang were eligible to vote and had six candidates to choose from representing three continents and five different sports. They were asked to cast votes for two different athletes from two different sports.
This story first appeared in the blog, The Sport Intern. The editor is Karl-Heinz Huba of Lorsch, Germany. He can be reached at ISMG@aol.com. The article is reprinted here with permission of Huba.