A seven-time Chef de Mission of Australian Olympic Teams, Mr Chesterman was successful in the ballot receiving 67 votes ahead of Olympian Mark Stockwell with 26 votes.

Mr Chesterman becomes the seventh AOC President, succeeding John Coates who stepped down after 32 years.

Ian Chesterman’s media conference can be found here.

Mr Chesterman was first elected to the AOC Executive in 2001, becoming Vice President in 2016. He was made an AOC Life Member in 2018.

He was Chef de Mission for the Australian Winter Olympic Teams at Nagano 1998, Salt Lake City 2002, Torino 2006, Vancouver 2010, Sochi 2014 and PyeongChang 2018.

In 2021, Mr Chesterman was Chef de Mission of the Australian Team at the Tokyo 2020 Summer Games.

The AGM also elected Evelyn Halls and Matt Allen AM as new Vice-Presidents succeeding Helen Brownlee AM and Ian Chesterman in those roles.

The delegates elected a new AOC Executive which includes new members Alisa Camplin-Warner & Elizabeth Scott.

•    Mark Arbib 
•    Alisa Camplin-Warner AM
•    Craig Carracher
•    Kitty Chiller AM
•    Cath Fettell
•    Michael Murphy 
•    Elizabeth Scott OAM

The 93 voting delegates were comprised of two delegates of each of the member National Federations on the programmes of the next summer and winter Olympic Games, members of the AOC Executive, Chair and Deputy Chair of the Athletes’ Commission, Chair and Deputy Chair of the Indigenous Advisory Committee and any members of the IOC who are Australian citizens.

In his final speech as AOC President, John Coates announced that the Executive has approved an AOC contribution of AUD$141,000 to the International Olympic Committee’s Solidarity Fund which has been established to support Ukrainian athletes currently competing around the world while their country is defending itself from a Russian invasion.

Mr Coates reiterated the AOC’s strong support for sanctions and bans imposed by the Australian Government and the IOC’s lead in urging all International Sports Federations to relocate or cancel sports events planned for Russia and Belarus as well as measures to prevent athletes and sports officials from Russia and Belarus competing under the name of Russia and Belarus.

“We are part of an international sporting movement raising its powerful voice. We will continue to use it until this crisis is over,” Mr Coates said.

Mr Coates speech can be found here.

The meeting was also addressed by IOC President Thomas Bach who told the meeting the war has required the Olympic movement to act decisively.

“Our actions were two-fold: sanctioning and protective measures. This involved finding the right balance between on the one hand sanctioning those in the Russian government who are responsible for this war; and on the other hand, protecting the integrity and fairness of global competitions by not allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part in competitions, or to at least prohibit any identification of their nationality.

“At the same time, we have strengthened our humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainian Olympic community. We have been overwhelmed with an outpouring of solidarity from stakeholders across the Olympic Movement. To make this assistance as efficient as possible we have not only established a solidarity fund, we have also called on our IOC Member Sergii Bubka in his capacity as President of the NOC of Ukraine, to lead our efforts,” Mr Bach said.

At the conclusion of his speech, President Bach presented John Coates with the IOC President’s Trophy for his contribution to the Olympic movement.

Previous winners include former United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Olympic champion sprinter Usain Bolt.

IOC President Bach’s speech can be found here.

Mr Bach also presented Helen Brownlee AM with an Australian Olympic Change Maker medal and the AOC’s Cecil Healy Award to decathlete Cedric Dubler for his outstanding sportsmanship at the Tokyo 2020 Games.

The presentation to Helen Brownlee reflected her 30 year membership of the AOC and her pioneering role as the first woman to be elected an AOC Vice President, committee work for the AOC and advancing the cause of women in Pacific sport as Chair of the Oceania National Olympic Committees’ Women and Sport Commission.

The Annual General Meeting also approved changes to the AOC Constitution to reflect the merging of state Olympians Clubs into a single national organisation, the Australian Olympians Association.

A further change reflected “Recognised Organisation” status by the AOC be extended to sports who may have had representation on Australian Teams attending Youth Olympic Games and Regional Games.

The constitutional changes can be found the AGM Agenda document located here.