Edgar elected president of NZ Olympic Committee

12.00pm

Dunedin stockbroker Eion Edgar headed off two challenges to be elected president of the New Zealand Olympic Committee today.

Edgar, 59, who is also president of New Zealand Soccer, has been the NZOC's acting president since last year when former president John Davies died.

At the NZOC's general assembly in Wellington today, Wellington businessman Bill Garlick and New Zealand's team leader for the Athens Olympics, Dave Currie, were also nominated for the president's role and called for changes within the NZOC.

International Olympic Committee member Tay Wilson, who supervised the secret ballot, said Edgar was elected by a clear majority as the new president for the next five years.

Currie, who also led the New Zealand team at the Manchester Commonwealth Games, told today's assembly that the NZOC could do better.

He urged the NZOC to establish a taskforce to:

* Improve communications between stakeholders and the NZOC;

* Re-evaluate the management structure of Games teams;

* Re-evaluate NZOC staffing resources to meet increasing demands of Games team organisation;

* Resolve the "dislocation" between NZOC marketing and Games team operations;

* Improve relations between the NZOC, Academy of Sport, and Sport and Recreation New Zealand (Sparc).

"It is clear in my view, that unless New Zealand sport is prepared to adapt and be innovative, we will continue to fall even further behind world-class performances," Currie said.

Both Edgar and Garlick endorsed Currie's comments.

Garlick also called on the NZOC to help breach the funding gap between those athletes named in Games teams and others who are close to international competition.

"For half of our sports there is virtually no funding," he said.

- NZPA