The Spaniard is understood to be one of three candidates for the two vice-presidential positions that are due to become vacant.

The election will take place on Thursday (August 4) morning, towards the end of the Session.

Samaranch - whose father of the same name was IOC President for 21 years until 2001 and is generally regarded as the second-most important figure in the history of modern Olympism, after de Coubertin himself - is expected to be up against Ugur Erdener of Turkey, the President of World Archery and chair of the IOC Medical and Scientific Commission, and Switzerland’s Denis Oswald, former President of World Rowing.

Oswald, who ran against Thomas Bach for the IOC Presidency in 2013, will be viewed as the outsider.

Were he to secure one of the two posts, it would probably be interpreted as a shot across the IOC President’s bow.

That said, the Swiss member made an uncompromisingly supportive intervention in the debate on the Russian doping crisis that opened the Session.

Proceedings in Barra da Tijuca will conclude with a very new look to the IOC Executive Board, with as many as seven new members due to be elected.

One of these will be Angela Ruggiero, new President of the IOC Athletes’ Commission.

Candidates for the remaining posts are understood to include Ser Miang Ng of Singapore, another former challenger to Bach in 2013, Willi Kaltschmitt of Guatemala, the Central American nation where Sochi fatefully won the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, Nigeria’s Habu Gumel and Sergey Bubka, the former pole-vaulting star and rival to Seb Coe in last year’s International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Presidential election, from Ukraine.