The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Who will form the new executive board and who will become the new official sponsors of the Bahamas Olympic Committee?

Those are two major issues the country’s most prominent sporting body will have to deal with over the next few months.

After a special called meeting last week, the member associations voted 13-7 in favour of the executives of the BOC not being allowed to cast their votes during the election of officers that will take place whenever the annual general meeting is called. The meeting should have taken place on October 26, but it was delayed to sort out the constitutional matter.

BOC president Wellington Miller said that now that they have sorted it out, they are just waiting on the International Olympic Committee to approve the amendments and allow them to conduct their elections.

“We have to send all of the amendments that we passed and the IOC will look at it and see how it lines up with their charter and if it lines up with their charter, they will put it in their constitution. If it doesn’t, they will say to us that this does not line up and they will send it back to us to look over,” Miller said.

Miller, who is vying for his second four-year term in office whenever the elections are held, said it’s just a matter of how long it takes for the IOC to approve their recommendations before they can actually set a date for the elections.

Whenever it is held, Miller said he doesn’t feel that he will be adversely affected by his rival(s) whoever comes forth. “I think it is better because only federations can vote. In the past, the executives used to vote, now only the 13 federations can vote,” he said.

“Only those federations that are sports recognised by the IOC will be allowed to vote. So this is the best thing that has happened for the Olympic movement in the Bahamas.

“Instead the people who do all the work in the federations will now be able to decide who they want to run the affairs for the BOC.”

Those 13 members of the BOC who will be eligible to vote are the Bahamas Association of Athletic Associations (headed by Mike Sands), the Amateur Boxing Federation of the Bahamas (headed by Wellington Miller), the Bahamas Basketball Federation (headed by Charlie Robins), the Bahamas Cycling Federation (headed by Roy Colebrooke), the Bahamas Football Association (headed by Anton Sealy), the Gymnastics Federation of the Bahamas (headed by Barbara Thompson), the Bahamas Judo Association (headed by D’Arcy Rahming), the Bahamas Sailing Association (headed by John Lawrence), the Bahamas Swimming Federation (headed by Algernon Cargill), the Bahamas Taekwondo Association (headed by Ted Williams), the Bahamas Lawn Tennis Association (headed by Derron Donaldson), the Bahamas Volleyball Federation (headed by Don Cornish) and the Bahamas Wrestling Association (headed by George Braynen).

Miller said the constitution states that in order to be an elected member of the BOC, a person must be affiliated or involved with an Olympic sport.

“Once we get the constitution approved by the IOC, the general is next,” Miller said. “So you will have your eyes on who will be on your slate. Once all of that happens, you will know officially who will be running. That is when the nomination day is held for all the positions.”

While the BOC wrestles with its election process, they are also waiting on the December 31 deadline to start negotiating for a new contract after Adidas announced that they will no longer support the Bahamas and other countries, whom they all had under contract.

“They have told us that they are only going to hold a small amount of people to sponsor,” Miller said. “They are giving up most of their sponsorship because of a conflict they have with the IOC over the stripes that they use on their uniforms. They are not going into that heavy sponsorship anymore.

“I think they had a lot of other companies complaining to the IOC too. They were advertising their brand at the games and no one else could advertise their brand. So that contract is up. We just have to look for another contract. It ain’t no big thing about that. We still have a lot of companies out there who are interested in sponsoring the Bahamas.”