GENEVA: Under-fire handball federation head Hassan Moustafa has launched a surprise bid for election to an influential Olympic post. The Egyptian, who faces a challenge in his own sport, is running against incumbent Denis Oswald for the presidency of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations. Oswald, who is an executive board member of the International Olympic Committee, has headed ASOIF since 2000 and had been widely expected to be unopposed. The Swiss official is also president of the international rowing federation. It is a democratic process and if any federation wishes to put up a candidate they are entitled to do so, ASOIF administrator Andrew Ryan said in a telephone interview Wednesday. It is something which perhaps, by some people, is unexpected. Moustafa has been heavily criticized within handball for his spending on travel expenses and his part in a match-fixing dispute that disrupted qualification for the Beijing Olympics. The ASOIF presidential election will take place on March 24 in Denver by secret ballot among the 26 sports federations. The winner requires an absolute majority of 14 votes. Moustafa joined the seven-member ASOIF council two years ago. The International Handball Federation put Moustafa s name forward before a deadline late Monday, on the same day that two challengers declared their intentions to unseat him from power. Jean Kaiser of Luxembourg and Gudmundur Ingvarsson of Iceland will run against Moustafa for the IHF presidency in a vote at its congress June 4-7 in Cairo. A total of 159 national federations can vote at the handball annual congress. With handball facing a May deadline to meet out-of-competition drug testing targets set by the World Anti-Doping Agency, some officials have said they fear the sport s Olympic status could be threatened. Moustafa became the first Egyptian head of an international sports federation when he was elected IHF president in 2000. The governing body fell out with its Asian confederation before the Beijing Games when results at qualifying tournaments were marred by poor refereeing calls. The IHF ordered the men s and women s tournaments replayed before the outcomes were eventually resolved by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. -AP
