The IOC Athletes’ Commission will take on a new look at the end of the Rio Games. And it will change its accent.
Angela Ruggiero, one of the most illustrious ice hockey players in history and a four-time Olympic medalist between 1998 and 2010, was chosen on Monday, August 1st, in Rio de Janeiro to assume the presidency.
The American of Italian descent will take the seat left vacant by Claudia Bokel, the former German fencer, whose eight-year term is set to end on the evening of the closing ceremony.
Angela Ruggiero’s appointment is no surprise. Elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission during the Vancouver Games in 2010, she has served as vice president since the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014. She is moving up a rank. Logical and expected.
The other “winner” of the day in Rio de Janeiro is Tony Estanguet. The Frenchman, a member of the Athletes’ Commission since 2012, will take the position of vice president.
He succeeds the American. This deputy position designates him as a natural candidate to move up a notch and take the presidency, at the PyeongChang Winter Games in 2018, when Angela Ruggiero will, in turn, have to step down after eight years with the IOC.
