Olympics & Paralympics

Japan’s Morinari Watanabe Seen Running for Next IOC President

REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
Morinari Watanabe International Gymnastic Federation (FIG) President attends a news conference at the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in Aigle, Switzerland, June 3, 2022.

Jiji Press

13:42 JST, August 12, 2024

Paris (Jiji Press)—Japan’s Morinari Watanabe, president of the International Gymnastics Federation and a member of the International Olympic Committee, is planning to run for the next IOC president, it was learned on Sunday.

The IOC will hold a presidential election as early as March 2025 as the term of the current president, Thomas Bach, an Olympic fencing gold medalist from Germany, expires in June 2025.

The IOC has never had an Asian president.

Watanabe told reporters that the Japanese Olympic Committee’s decision would be necessary for him to announce his possible candidacy for the IOC president. “I will wait for that,” he said.

Meanwhile, Watanabe praised Bach, who took office in 2013, for successfully staging the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which paved the way for the success of the Paris Olympics.

JOC Secretary General Mitsugi Ogata said Watanabe’s possible bid is “very meaningful” for Japan and the JOC. “We will of course cooperate,” Ogata said.

Other potential candidates to succeed Bach include IOC Vice President Juan Antonio Samaranch of Spain, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe of Britain and David Lappartient, president of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee.