GENEVA — Ahead of the IOC’s first female president formally taking over next month, one of the few women leading an Olympic sport faces an election challenge.
The International Table Tennis Federation’s president since 2021, Petra Sörling, is in a May 27 contest against men from Qatar and Mauritania.
The vote in Doha after the world championships shapes to be between the Swedish incumbent and the host nation’s Khalil al-Mohannadi, a veteran of ITTF politics since 1997.
“He feels that he’s been so long in this sport he says he deserves to become the next president,” Sörling told reporters Thursday in an online call. “It’s a democratic world and everyone is, let’s say, free to make their campaign.”
Sörling is a rare female leader in world sports. Last month, badminton’s governing body elected Khunying Patama Leeswadtrakul unopposed, and another Swede, Annika Sörenstam, is in her third term as International Golf Federation president.
An International Olympic Committee member since 2023, Sörling was in Greece in March when Kirsty Coventry won against six men in the IOC’s presidential election.
“I am looking forward, with the good relations I have with her,” she said of Coventry, “also to play my role in fully supporting her in the new chapter of the IOC.”
Sörling is campaigning on a record that includes a three-fold increase in ITTF commercial revenue since 2019 and sold-out sessions at the Paris Olympics last year.
The ITTF hopes its planned 7,000-capacity space for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, at the Convention Center downtown, could increase. Table tennis will debut a mixed-team event for men and women.
“Our biggest challenge now in LA is that we think our venue is too small. It’s a good problem,” Sörling said.
The election follows Qatar hosting the worlds that open Saturday and run through May 25.
In this time, Sörling suggested, an election solution could be found “so we don’t have any losers. We have no time to waste on internal fights.”
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