(Reuters) – Singapore’s Ng Ser Miang is expected to announce a bid for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) presidency on Thursday, a source close to the Olympic movement told Reuters on Tuesday.
The IOC Vice President is set to become the second candidate for one of the top jobs in world sport after German Thomas Bach, also an IOC Vice President, announced his bid last week.
The 64-year-old businessman has been an IOC member since 1998 and becomes the first Asian to throw his hat into the ring for the election on September 10 in Buenos Aires at the IOC session.
Singapore’s Ambassador to Hungary and a former nominated member of parliament, Ng has seen his international sports profile considerably improved after he staged successful inaugural Youth Olympics in Singapore in 2010, the brainchild of outgoing president Jacques Rogge.
Rogge, who succeeded Juan Antonio Samaranch in 2001, sees his two-term presidency come to a mandatory end in September.
Asia will host the 2018 winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea while Tokyo is bidding for the 2020 summer Games.
Ng could not be reached for a comment though the Singapore Olympic Committee sent out a media advisory saying Ng would “deliver remarks” in Paris on Thursday.
There are more candidacies expected before the June 10 submission deadline, with Puerto Rican Richard Carrion, head of the IOC’s Finance Commission, also considered as a presidential hopeful.
International boxing federation (AIBA) boss C.K. Wu of Taiwan and Swiss sports administrators Denis Oswald and Rene Fasel have also been mentioned as potential candidates along with former pole vault champion Sergei Bubka of Ukraine.
The AIBA Executive Committee on Tuesday called on their president to run for the top Olympic post.
“The Executive Committee members believe it would be a great pride and honor for both AIBA and the sport of boxing if president had any chance to represent the International Olympic Movement,” it said in a letter addressed to its national federations and seen by Reuters.
“We believe (the) president will accept this invaluable support from all AIBA EC members and make his final announcement whether or not to run for next IOC President very shortly.”
Seven of the eight IOC presidents to date have been European and one from the United States.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann, additional reporting by Padraic Halpin in Dublin,; editing by Clare Fallon and Pritha Sarkar)
