The 44-year-old Namibian, a four-time Olympic silver medallist, is currently the highly respected chairman of the IOC Athletes' Commission.

But, under the rules of the IOC, his eight-year term is due to expire at London and he would have been forced to step down.

He will now be allowed to continue, however, after he was nominated by the IOC's ruling Executive Board at its meeting here today.

A similar situation happened to Fredericks' predecessor as chairman of the Athletes' Commission, Sergey Bubka, who was elected to continue as an IOC member when his term ended in 2008. 

Fredericks, who finished second in the 100 and 200 metres at both the 1992 and 1996 Olympics in Barcelona and Atlanta respectively, is set to be joined by another former top athlete after China's Lingwei Li, who is also being put forward for election at the IOC Session in London on the eve of the Games.

Li, 48, is considered to be one of the greatest badminton players in history, who won three world titles during her career.

She is a former winner of the Women and Sport Trophy for Asia and was among the eight Chinese athletes chosen to carry the Olympic flag into the Stadium during the Opening Ceremony of Beijing 2008. 


Li (pictured above front left) will become the third Chinese member of the IOC.

She will join Zaiqing Yu, the vice-president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, who is also a member of the IOC Executive Board, and former speed skater Yang Yang, a double Olympic cahmpion. 

The other nominations for membership are led by Tsunekazu Takeda, the President of the Japanese Olympic Committee, whose election had been widely expected because Chiharu Igaya Shunichiro Okano had both been forced to step down at the end of last year at the mandatory retirement age of 80.

The election of Takeda, a former show jumper who represented Japan at the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, would be a boost to Tokyo's bid to host the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, which he is also leading.

If elected - which, like for the other nominations, is expected to be a formality - Takeda (pictured below) will be the 13th IOC member from Japan and the second from his family.


His father, Tsuneyoshi, who was a grandson of Emperor Meiji, also served as an IOC member.

Tsuneyoshi Takeda became President of the JOC in 1962 and was involved in the organisation of the1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo.

He was a member of the 1967 to 1981, during which he was director of the Executive Board for five years.

The other candidates nominated by the Executive Board are Aisha Garad Ali of Djibouti and Pierre-Olivier Beckers of Belgium.

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