PT Usha to file her nomination for IOA president’s post

India’s legendary sprinter PT Usha will file her nomination papers for the post of Indian Olympic Association’s president and said she has the support of the National Sports Federations (NSFs).

“With the warm support of my fellow athletes and National Federations I am humbled and honoured to accept and file for the nomination of the President of the IOA,” Usha tweeted Saturday evening.

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The last day for filing nominations is on Sunday. The IOA elections are scheduled to be held on December 10. No nomination papers were received in the first two days, as per the notice put out by returning officer Umesh Sinha, former secretary general Election Commission of India.

Usha is among the eight Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit (SOM) selected by the Athletes Commission, who are part of the electoral college with a right to vote and contest in the IOA elections. The other SOMs are MM Somaya (hockey), Rohit Rajpal (tennis), Yogeshwar Dutt (wrestling), Akhil Kumar (boxing), Suma Shirur (shooting), Aparna Popat (badminton) and Dola Banerjee (archery).

The 77-member electoral college comprises of two nominations from 33 NSFs (one male and female), eight SOMs, two members nominated by the newly constituted Athletes Commission (Gagan Narang, PV Sindhu) and Nita Ambani as International Olympic Committee Member in India.

The elections for the IOA will be held for the post of President, Sr. Vice-President, Vice-Presidents (two), Treasurer (one), Joint Secretaries (two) and Executive Council Members (six), out of which two -- one male and one female-- shall be from the elected SOMs.

The amended IOA constitution was approved at the IOA special general meeting on November 10. The new constitution was drafted after consultations with the International Olympic Committee, Olympic Council of Asia, IOA, and government representatives, keeping in mind the IOC charter, the Sports Code and various court orders. It is expected to be a new-look IOA with the new constitution paving way for more representation of sportspersons and female administrators in the executive council.

An elected Athletes Commission was the first step in that direction. A 10-member Athletes Commission was constituted with MC Mary Kom and Achanta Sharath Kamal as chairperson and vice-chairperson. The Commission will be represented in the IOA executive body and various committees.

More sportspersons are expected to file nominations for various posts on Sunday. On Friday, the returning officer made a slight modification to the nomination filing, allowing proposers/seconders who are not physically present to send scanned copies of duly signed nomination forms to their candidates and send them to the returning officer through notified email.

This was done as “there were queries from stakeholders stating that their proposers/seconders namely, the athletes, are not in India or training and participating in tournaments and would be unable to provide an original signed copy of the nomination form to the candidate.”

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