Moving into the new year, 2 representatives of the 106-member International Olympic Committee (IOC) have passed the organization’s age limits in 2015, thus rendering them off the official IOC roster.
Per the IOC’s rules, a member’s age limit is fixed at 70 years old, with the exception of members co-opted between 1966 and 1999, for whom the age limit is 80.
FINA President Julio César Maglione, who first joined the IOC in 1996, turned 80 years old as of November 14, 2015 and, therefore, over the age limit. Mexico’s Olegario Vázquez Raña was also removed from the official IOC list of members after passing the age limit in 2015 as well. Canadian Richard Pound, first elected to the IOC in 1978, now represents the oldest member of the organization at 73 years of age.
Four additional IOC members, including Russia’s Vitaly Smirnov, Lebanon’s Tony Khoury, Zambia’s Patrick Chamunda and Greece’s Lambis V. Nikolau have stepped down leaving just 92 serving members. The upper limit of IOC membership is 115, so the current count is well beneath that. As such, an unspecified number of new recruits will be added at this summer’s IOC Session in Rio de Janeiro.
For Maglione, his being excused from the IOC due to age is somewhat ironic, as he was one of the primary proponents of the abolishment of age limitations within the FINA organization. Prior to FINA’s Congressional rule changes that went into effect last summer, including the eradication of certain posts’ age limits, the institution’s regulations stated that the maximum age of elected Bureau members ‘must be no more than eighty (80) years in the year of the election to the FINA Bureau’.
However, Maglione, is in the midst of his second term as FINA President, which runs until 2017 when he will be the age of 81. Thus, the passing of the amendment now supports Maglione continuing past 80 years of age at least within FINA.