Groundhog Day in World Triathlon: "collusion, pressure and coercion to manipulate" the presidential election
In the next weeks, several presidential posts in Olympic IF will be filled. The first decision will be taken at World Triathlon Congress in Spain on 21 October. Three presidential candidates complained to IOC president Thomas Bach about the dubious machinations of the Spanish Triathlon leadership.
María de la Soledad Casado Estupiñán wants to make her general secretary Antonio Fernández Arimany president of World Triathlon. Casado has been president since 2008 and is only the second head of this young Olympic federation after the late Canadian Les McDonald (1989-2008). In 2010, Casado was appointed an ex officio member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in her capacity as Triathlon president (at that time it was still called the International Triathlon Union/ITU). Casado will now lose her IOC membership. However, Spain is of course speculating that if the plan succeeds on Monday 21st October, Arimany will also become an IOC member in near future.
The takeover of power within international federations (IF), Olympic and Non-Olympic, even between fellow countrymen, is often an inglorious and sometimes highly dubious tradition. In Olympic history, general secretaries have often become federation presidents. In the current case, the election congress is even taking place in Spain, in Torremolinos, where the World Triathlon Championship Finals ended today.
Perhaps the most spectacular case of a secretary general becoming an IF president occurred in 1998, when Joseph Blatter was elected FIFA president and successor to the totally corrupt João Havelange – in an election that is forever overshadowed by vote buying. What hardly anyone remembers is that the opposition around Blatter's challenger Lennart Johansson managed to force Blatter out as general secretary a few weeks before the election. They claimed Blatter had abused his power in the administration for his election campaign.
This is exactly what World Triathlon is about in October 2024.
The accusation that Antonio Arimany, backed by Marisol Casado, has been abusing his position for months and using it for his election campaign is not just an open question – it has partially substantiated.
On 7 August this year, World Triathlon announced the names of eight candidates for president: Debbie Alexander (South Africa), Michelle Cooper (Australia), Antonio Alvarez (Mexico), Mads Freund (Denmark), Ian Howard (Great Britain), Shin Otsuka (Japan), Tamas Toth (Hungary) and, as mentioned, Antonio Arimany, the loyal and sometimes rather strange-acting servant of Marisol Casado.
On the weekend before the election, for somewhat dubious reasons, there were only five candidates left. Two of the officials – Alvarez and Otsuka – withdrew their candidacy at the meeting of Europe Triathlon in Vichy a few weeks ago, wanting to become vice presidents and directly urging other delegates to vote for Antonio Arimany.
In the meantime, the so-called Credentials Committee has ruled in the cases of Alvarez and Otsuka, finding that both officials have violated the Elections Rules.
Both vice president were publicly reprimanded.
