Tony Estanguet about to make his return to the International Olympic Committee

He himself already recognized it, the Olympic Games had barely ended, he would be “hard to get out of sport”. “It’s my life, my universe, where I feel legitimate, the most competent, where I have my bearings”, confided Tony Estanguet to Mondeon August 11, 2024, a few hours before the closing ceremony. After leaving the presidency of the Organizing Committee for the Paris 2024 Games in mid-December, he should, barring any surprises, return to the world of Olympics.

The Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) “approved the application” of the former canoe champion, which will be submitted to the vote of the other members during the 144^e session of the IOC, scheduled in Greece from March 18 to 21, details a press release from the body, published Tuesday January 7.

Voting should be a simple formality. The session systematically ratifies the proposals of the executive board, and the boss of the last Games should return to the IOC as “independent individual member”.

The 46-year-old from Palois had already served an eight-year mandate in Lausanne (Switzerland). Between 2013 and 2021, he sat on the athletes’ commission alongside former Zimbabwean swimmer Kirsty Coventry, who is notably, with David Lappartient, boss of the French Olympic Committee, among the seven candidates to succeed the president of the CIO, Thomas Bach, during the same session in March.

“A little more normal life”

Tony Estanguet, who officially completed his Paris 2024 mission in December with the announcement of a slight surplus from the organizing committee’s budget, had not revealed any ambitions for the future, other than that of taking ” vacation “ et “a little perspective”. His name had been mentioned to take over from Amélie Oudéa-Castéra at the head of the sports ministry, but the former strong man of the Games had declined. At Mondehe had expressed his desire to “get back to a little more normal life” et to spend more time with his children, and why not, he said, to “take a break for several months”.

Finally, the former triple Olympic champion (2000 in Sydney, 2004 in Athens and 2012 in London) – the only French athlete with judoka Teddy Riner to have won three individual titles during three different editions of the Games – should have held only three months before diving back into the Olympic bath. Where he says ” to have [ses] landmarks ».