International Olympic Committee (IOC) doyen Richard Pound is no longer involved in the body’s influential Legal Affairs Commission after latest membership lists were announced for 2018.
Most of the Commissions will not actually meet this year, however, due to the Summer Youth Olympic Games in October, and will instead convene from January 14 to 20 in 2019.
Canada’s Pound, the most senior IOC member and a veteran lawyer who has frequently clashed with the organisation’s leadership in recent years on the issue of Russian doping, is still a member of Communications and Marketing Commissions.
His exclusion from the legal panel appears significant, though, because it is considered one of the few panels which has retained genuine importance today, helping devise policy on issues including the joint awarding of the 2024 and 2028 Olympic Games as well anti-doping appeals.
IOC President Thomas Bach headed the Commission, formerly named Sport and Law, from 2002 until 2014.
An IOC spokesperson suggested that Pound’s removal was part of an attempt to “shift the composition onto the next generation”.
Switzerland’s Patrick Baumann, the President of the Global Association of Summer Olympic International Sports Federations, and France’s Paris 2024 Organising Committee head Tony Estanguet, have also stepped down from the Legal Affairs Commission.
Australia’s John Coates remains the chair of the panel, which also includes new member Ingmar de Vos, the International Equestrian Federation President from Belgium.