Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov has indicated he will step down after six years in the role.
“To further strengthen the Olympic movement in Russia, there are now timely preconditions, including economic ones, for a change of leader and team,” Pozdnyakov said in a statement on the Russian Olympic Committee website, according to a translation. “In this regard, the ROC Executive Committee at its next meeting on November 7, I am sure, will support my proposal and set a date for the Olympic Assembly to hold early elections for the new leadership of the Russian Olympic Committee.”
Pozdnyakov, 51, has been the ROC president since May 2018. He previously won four Olympic fencing gold medals from 1992 through 2000.
Russian athletes competed without their flag or anthem at the last four Olympics — PyeongChang 2018, Tokyo 2020, Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024 — due at first to the nation’s doping violations and then due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine shortly after the 2022 Games.
The Russian Olympic Committee was suspended by the IOC last October because it incorporated sports bodies in four regions of Ukraine, which the IOC deemed a breach of the Olympic Charter.
