Two associations voted against the resolution to postpone the elections.
Four Olympic sports and six non-Olympic sports did not submit their votes.
Under the GNOC constitution Olympic sports have two votes while non-Olympic sports have one vote. Vie virtue of such the resolution to postpone the elections until after the Games holds.
It could be recalled that GNOC office was closed due to covid-19 but on 1 October its management decided to fully operationalise the office again.
Briefing members of the media on the decision, Abdoulie MB Jallow, GNOC secretary general said their management had a meeting and made some decisions that were to be taken to the board.
He added that among those decisions was about a letter from the International Olympic Committee (OIC) captioned “Postponement of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 to 2021- potential implications on the NOC election cycle”.
He said at the board meeting held on 17 October 2020 they reviewed the letter from IOC and unanimously decided to postpone the elective congress of the GNOC till after the Olympic Games in August.
“After the board meeting a resolution was sent to all national associations and qualified individual decision makers at GNOC which includes athletes’ representative, IOC member and anybody serving a continental body”, he explained, saying they gave associations the option to agree or disagree with the resolution made by the board to postpone the elections till after the Olympic Games.
Presidents or Secretary Generals of associations decided on behalf of their respective associations agreed to the postponement of the elective congress by voting, he went on.
He highlighted that the GNOC board gave consideration to athletes when they were making the decision to pass the resolutions, noting that they are currently preparing the five athletes that were at the high performance center in Dakar, Senegal to go back.
He said they are also waiting on associations with potentials to qualify and are monitoring the situation of their qualifiers.
Mr Jallow expressed GNOC’s readiness to continue to closely work with all associations including those that voted against the board’s resolution and those that did not submit their votes, saying they did not vote against the executive but against a resolution.
“The executive will not hold it against you”, he added, noting that it is a democracy and they respect all those that voted and those who did not.
