Former national swimming chief elected as KOC president
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Lee Ki-heung
By Kang Hyun-kyung
Lee Ki-heung, the former president of the Korea Swimming Federation (KSF), was elected as new president of the Korea Olympic Committee (KOC), Wednesday.
During the election at the Olympic Park in southern Seoul, Lee, 61, won 294 out of 892 votes cast, ahead of runner-up Chang Ho-sung, president of Dankook University, by 81 votes.
The total number of eligible voters was 1,405 people, a 63.5 percent voter turnout.
“I feel the immense sense of responsibility after being elected as new KOC leader,” Lee said during an acceptance speech after winning the race.
He called for unity inside the KOC, proposing an inclusive organization that can provide equal opportunities for all its members. “What I’d like to achieve is an inclusive KOC that can embrace all its members, not a divisive or discriminative one,” he said. “Some are allowed to do something, but some aren’t. This is not the organization that I am seeking to achieve.”
Lee pledged to be a leader of action, not rhetoric.
He is the first KOC president since the merger in March of the national Olympic committee and the national association of people taking up sports as hobby.
As a new KOC president, Lee will manage a 400 billion won annual budget and the selections of athletes to represent Korea during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics and the Tokyo Olympics.
During the campaign, he vowed to achieve financial independence for the KOC, create more jobs for retired athletes and help improve athletes’ performances by introducing sports science.
His official tenure begins today and will continue for four years.
Lee’s victory, meanwhile, is seen as a precursor to a possible rift between the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism and the KOC ahead of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Lee was widely viewed as a candidate at odds with the sports ministry. The KSF was mired in corruption scandals during his six-year tenure as president. Investigators found some KSF board members and staff received cash in return for the selection of athletes to represent the country in international swimming events. Earlier, the sports ministry pinpointed the KSF scandal as an exemplary case showing a greedy, self-serving organization that must be reformed.
The election results showed that his rival Chang chased him fiercely, winning 213 votes.
Contrary to Lee, Chang was described as a candidate favored by the sports ministry. However, he denied the allegation that his bid to become the KOC president was supported by the ministry.
The three other contenders were former table tennis player-turned-lawmaker Lee Ailesa, Kyung Hee University professor Chun Byung-kwyan, and former judoka Chang Jung-soo.