IOC Chairman Election, Kim Un-Ryong, Rogge Is To Encounter at Final Vote

There are exactly six days remaining. At the 112th International Olympic Committee (IOC) Session holding at the World Trade Center in Moscow, the election of the chairman, so called the president of world sports, will be held.

In the eighth chairman election that will succeed Juan Antonio Samaranch`s twenty-year presidency to lead the Olympic Movement on the global village, Kim Un-Yong, the Korean Sports Council Chairman and one of the IOC members, challenges the presidency for the first time as a colored person.

Candidates targeting the `post-Samaranch era` include Chairman Kim Un-Yong, Belgium’s Jacques Rogge IOC member, Canada’s Richard W. Pound, President of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), American IOC vice president Anita DeFrantz, and Hungary`s Pal Schmitt IOC member.

Major news agencies of the orld is forecasting that while at the first poll, during which an unprecedented hot contest is expected, nobody can assert to earn the half of the whole votes, but at the final vote, Chairman Kim and Rogge will be the finalists.

In fact, Rogge, backed by Europe’s 57 IOC members, almost a half of 122 vote castors, seems to be more advantageous than Chairman Kim whose foundations are Asia (21 members) and Africa (15 members).

However, exemplifying that Rogge’s career as a IOC member is relatively short, and the Latin people and Anglo-Saxon people are divided to select the host-city for the 2006 Winter Olympic, Kim is seeking to overturn.

After all, the election depends on the direction of 24 America’s votes that will be divided after Pound and DeFrantz are eliminated.

Consequently, the camp of Kim is waiting for the day with a strategy galvanize the votes from the Asian and African, and at the same time, focusing on earning more votes from members from Eastern Europe briskly coping with other candidates’ coalition tactic from the 2nd round poll.

Zang Hwan-Soo zangpabo@donga.com