John Coates

John Dowling Coates (born 7 May 1950) is an Australian lawyer, sports administrator and businessman.

Coates, who maintains close ties with the IOC President Thomas Bach, was able to secure the hosting rights for Australia for the third time, after the 1956 Summer Olympics held majorly in Melbourne and the 2000 Summer Olympics that took place in Sydney.

He was keen on sports at school, being a member of the school's 5th Grade cricket XI in 1963 He took a day off school in early 1964 to watch Richie Benaud play his last test match, and a photograph appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald the next day of a beaming young Coates alongside Benaud as he left the field of play.

Failing to make the school's senior cricket sides he took up rowing in 1967 some three years after the school had introduced the sport in 1964, coxing one of the school's boats to victories over more experienced crews from established rowing schools at several regattas.

Failing to matriculate at his first attempt at the NSW Higher School Certificate in 1967, Coates repeated Year 12 in 1968 with better results.

After leaving school he studied at the University of Sydney, and qualified as a solicitor.

Coates has been married twice.

His first marriage was to the former representative rower, Pauline Kahl with whom he had six children.

They are now divorced.

In 1968 he was captain of the school's rowing squad.

Coates has been a fixture at the Summer Olympics for more than 30 years, having been Australian Olympic Team Rowing Section Manager at the Montreal Games (1976), Administration Director at the Moscow Games (1980), Deputy Chef de mission at the Los Angeles Games (1984), and Chef de mission at the Seoul (1988), Barcelona (1992), Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000), Athens (2004) and Beijing (2008) Games.

Current positions include:

Other official positions previously held include:

After having remained involved with the sport of rowing through Sydney Rowing Club, Coates was in 1978 elected to the (now defunct) position of Honorary Secretary of the Australian Amateur Rowing Council (now Rowing Australia) and in 1983 became President (and from 1984 Chairman).

He continued in this role until 1988.

After a relatively benign process delivered the 1988 Games to Seoul, the 1992 bid took the process to a new level of professionalism and competition.

He has been a part of a number of Olympic bids including the Brisbane 1992 Olympic Games Bid, Melbourne Olympic Games Bid Strategy Committee, and the 1991-1993 Sydney Olympics 2000 Bid Limited.

Coates was Vice President of the Sydney Olympic Bid Committee.

That escalation continued for the 1996 and 2000 bids, with each successive bidder seeking an edge.''

In July 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the hosting rights of the 2032 Summer Olympics to Brisbane, stating that John Coates played no role in the bidding decisions.

However, it was believed that Australia's win in the one-city race wouldn't have been possible "if we didn't have John Coates".

In an article published in Sydney's Daily Telegraph on 27 January 1999, Coates said Australian officials had at first been "terribly naive" about the bidding process but soon "refined" their efforts.

Based on the lessons of two failed Games bids (Brisbane and Melbourne), Coates produced a 16-page strategy document.

With government support, the budget for securing IOC delegates' support was increased from A$6 million for the Brisbane bid to A$28 million for Sydney.

As he explained: ''Over the course of my involvement with three Australian Olympic bids, I watched this bidding process get out of hand.

He played a key role in bringing the 2000 Olympics to Australia and in its delivery.

Prior to the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Coates offered African countries scholarships allowing their athletes to train in Adelaide in the lead up to the Sydney Games.

400 athletes from 11 African nations took part in the special Olympic Training Camp.

Under the program the visiting teams received all meals, accommodation, training facilities, local transport, and access to sports medicine experts.

In total, the Program provided $2 million to support the development of African athletes and coaches who participated in the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

The bulk of that amount was spent in Australia.

The controversy caused by this was fully investigated by the IOC and Mr Coates was cleared of any wrongdoing.

Coates was quoted as saying "I wasn't going to die wondering why we didn't win, like we didn't win (when competing with) Brisbane or Melbourne. We needed to get our fair share of votes out of Africa."

He is a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) having served as a vice president from 2013 to 2017 and again since 2020, and is the former president of the Australian Olympic Committee and chairman of the Australian Olympic Foundation.

Alongside these roles Coates is also the president of the Court of Arbitration for Sport and the International Council of Arbitration for Sport.

Born in Sydney, New South Wales, the son of a solicitor, Coates was brought up in the Sydney suburb of Strathfield.

He attended Homebush Boys High School.

In 2016 it was reported that Coates was paid a salary of A$689,634 in 2015 as Executive Chairman of the Australian Olympic Committee and that he had collected A$7.05 million in consulting fees and allowances between 2000 and 2016.

In October 2017, after a three-year engagement, Coates married the Timor-Leste born Orieta Pires, a hair and make-up artist.

The wedding occurred in a suburban Sydney Park.