The IOC’s six presidential candidates have wrapped up their final push for votes and are preparing for today’s selection of a successor to Jacques Rogge. The organization will vote on a new president between 10:00-11:00am ET, with the winner to be named at 11:30am. It is only the second presidential election in 30 years, and six IOC members are vying for the job: Thomas Bach, a German lawyer and former Olympian; Sergey Bubka, the Ukranian pole vaulting gold medalist; Richard Carrion, the Puerto Rican CEO of Banco Popular; Ng Ser Miang, the Singaporean businessman; Dennis Oswald, a Swiss lawyer and Olympic rower; and C.K. Wu, the Tawainese architect and head of the boxing federation.
Bach has long been seen as a frontrunner, and many Olympic observers have him pegged to win a majority of votes in the first or second round of voting. But that has not stopped the other candidates from lobbying. Bubka took a group of IOC members out to dinner on Monday night and Oswald and Carrion dined together over the weekend. The election has shaped up very differently from the last one in '01, when outgoing President Juan Antonio Samaranch was considered to favor Rogge as his successor. IOC members say Rogge has stayed out of this election.
