The Race to Olympia: An Election Among Chums

There is now less than a month before the IOC chooses its new President so the Zeus Files has decided to try to assess who is going to vote for whom

The media’s role in ordinary, bog-standard elections is plain. The voters are your readers/listeners/viewers. There is obvious utility in imparting to them what the candidates are saying. You can also publish, or even commission, opinion polls that offer periodic snapshots of where voters stand.

In International Olympic Committee elections, none of this applies. The electorate is not the general public, but the 100 or so members of sport’s most exclusive club. (Though some of them, as it happens, do read the Zeus Files.) There are no opinion polls.

So, turning to the IOC Presidential vote that is fast approaching, what can the media usefully do now that we have reported details of the manifestos put out by the seven candidates bidding to replace Thomas Bach?

Which of the seven candidates standing for IOC President is going to win? ©IOC