The Race to Olympia: Tactical voting, smear campaigns, a Ming vase - welcome to the IOC election

The election on Thursday to vote for a new IOC President is entering the final phase and Thomas Bach is doing all he can to give his chosen successor her best chance

Any semblance of neutrality that International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach had about the campaign to choose his successor has disappeared now members have begun gathering in Costa Navarino for the election on Thursday.

It has been widely known since Bach announced during the Olympics in Paris last August that he was stepping down that he wanted Zimbabwe’s Kirsty Coventry to replace him and he has been lobbying relentlessly on her behalf. Olympicland has been abuzz for weeks now of Bach gathering together IOC members from Africa in a private room and urging them to support her and of him personally calling female voters with the aim of helping install Coventry as the first woman to lead the IOC.

There has been increasing disquiet among some of the 109 IOC members about Bach’s role in this election when neutrality had been expected. “It has been difficult to engage,” one of the favourites, Sebastian Coe, said before heading to Greece. “In future, this just needs to be a more open and expansive process. I think the membership deserves that.”