John Coates has few regrets as he heads out the door. The man who has shaped the Australian – and global – Olympic movements for the past three decades is typically uncompromising as he prepares to hand in the Australian Olympic Committee presidency on Saturday.

He’s no elite athlete – a congenital hip dislocation meant his love of rowing progressed no further than coxing a Homebush Boys’ High crew before he moved into coaching and then administration, but the imprint left by the man who first became an Olympic delegate in 1975 is as enduring as the longest-standing records on the field.