Australian Olympic Committee President John Coates "moved to sandbag his position" on the IOC by standing for "re-election" as an individual member, according to Chip Le Grand of THE AUSTRALIAN. The proposed change in Coates' status, to be decided by a vote of IOC members on Saturday, "would make his IOC tenure no longer dependent on his AOC presidency." The move opens the possibility of Coates remaining on the IOC until the Paris 2024 Olympics. It is also "likely to prompt accusations of misleading campaigning in this year's bitterly fought contest" for AOC president. A "central plank" of Coates' re-election campaign was the notion that he would be "stripped of his IOC membership if he were voted off" as president of the AOC. Coates' position was backed by the IOC. Although the IOC advice was "technically correct, it omitted a mechanism" open to Coates to rejoin the IOC if "dumped as AOC president" -- to stand for re-election to the IOC as an individual member. This is what Coates "now has planned for the final day of the 131st IOC session in Lima, Peru" (THE AUSTRALIAN, 9/11).
