Sir Craig Reedie will reach the age limit as a member of the IOC

Sir Craig Reedie / Outside Source

INSIDE THE GAMES.– The number of full members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will be reduced by one to 101 as 2021 draws to a close, and Sir Craig Reedie will move to honorary member status.

The Scotsman celebrated his 80th birthday last May and will therefore reach his age limit at the IOC later this year.

He has served 27 years as a full member, having entered the sport’s most prestigious club in 1994, as part of a classic entry that also included Robin Mitchell of Fiji, former gold medal-winning Soviet sprinter Valeriy Borzov and broadcasting expert Alex Gilady.

Having started his long career in sports administration with the Scottish Badminton Union in 1964, the year of the first Tokyo Olympics, Sir Craig has been part of a long list of national and international bodies, including the British Olympic Association, of the who was president from 1992 to 2005, the Association of National Olympic Committees, where he spent nearly a decade on the Executive Committee, and the now-endangered General (now Global) Association of International Sports Federations, where he was treasurer for two years.

His most challenging position was probably that of president of the World Anti-Doping Agency from 2014 to the end of 2019, a period dominated by the Russian doping crisis.

If that taxed him to the fullest, the Glasgow University graduate also enjoyed plenty of cause for celebration for not so far six decades in the charcoal face of sports decision-making.

The London 2012 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games and the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games would be two obvious high points, as would the IOC’s decision, taken during a session in East Berlin in 1985, to add the sport of badminton from Sir Craig to the Summer Olympic program, beginning with the Barcelona Games in 1992.

Within the IOC, Sir Craig was a member of the Executive Committee between 2009 and 2012, and Vice President between 2012 and 2016.