Allyson Felix wins Paris Olympic athlete selection and joins International Olympic Committee

PARIS (AP) — Seven-time Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix won election Thursday to serve because the IOC’s athlete representative for the subsequent eight years.

Three of the 4 newly elected members are women, including Australian kayaker Jessica Fox, a two-time Olympic medalist in Paris, and Kim Bui, a member of the German gymnastics team who wore a leotard to the Tokyo Olympics in protest against the “sexualization” of ladies’s clothing in the game.

Fourth place within the voting of 6,576 athletes on the Olympic Games in Paris was taken by Marcus Daniell, a New Zealand tennis player who won the bronze medal in the lads’s doubles in Tokyo three years ago.

Felix, the now-retired American sprint champion, topped the list with the support of two,880 of her peers, the International Olympic Committee said.

Each athlete member is given an eight-year term on the International Olympic Committee. Among a very powerful decisions they might be involved in is selecting the hosts for the 2036 and 2040 Summer Olympics.

“My biggest goal is to hear and take the time to listen to what’s going on,” Felix said.

Athletes are eligible to run for election in the event that they have competed in the present or previous Olympic Games. Felix competed in her fifth Summer Olympics in Tokyo three years ago. She has won medals in each of her trips to the Olympics, including a gold within the 4 × 400-meter relay as a farewell.

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The winners from a listing of 29 candidates will replace 4 retiring athlete members who were elected on the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Russian Yelena Isinbayeva, who holds the world record in the ladies’s pole vault, is certainly one of the retiring members.

The IOC has a maximum of 115 members, including 16 athletes, in addition to members of royal families from Europe and Asia, the pinnacle of state – the Emir of Qatar – former heads of presidency, sports representatives, former Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh.

Felix and Fox were already members of the IOC-appointed Olympic Athletes Commission, and the American was pushing for a progressive step forward on the Paris Games: a nursery within the Athletes Village where parent athletes could spend time with their children.

Felix said on Thursday that the project was certainly one of her “biggest dreams” of getting involved in Olympic politics, “inspired by returning to compete with my daughter.”

“It happened really quickly. I thought, maybe L.A., and they said, ‘Maybe we can do it in Paris.’ That was really encouraging,” said Felix. The 38-year-old American is an athlete adviser for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

Fox’s election will provide Australia with an extra voice within the Olympic arena ahead of the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane.

“With the Games continuing through to Brisbane 2032, it’s fantastic for us as the host nation… to ensure that the athlete experience is at the heart of the Olympic movement all the way to the runway in Brisbane,” Fox said.

Four recent athletes will take the Olympic oath on Saturday in Paris.