Greg Hunt denies taking sides on Olympic boss

Sports Minister Greg Hunt has denied the government is taking sides in the AOC’s presidential election.

Sports Minister Greg Hunt has denied that the federal government is taking sides in the Australian Olympic Committee’s presidential election.

Reports in the past week asserted Malcolm Turnbull intervened to reappoint Australian Sports Commission chairman John Wylie before the AOC election as a sign he was backing Mr Wylie in his feud with John Coates.

Mr Hunt has rejected that ­version of events as “genuinely and completely wrong”.

A spokesman for Mr Hunt has told The Australian the reappointment of Mr Wylie was in train ­before Mr Hunt became Sports Minister in January, and the appointment was supported by both Mr Hunt and the Prime Minister.

The timing of the AOC’s annual meeting “simply wasn’t a consideration”, the spokesman said.

The Australian understands Mr Turnbull and Mr Hunt never discussed the date of the AOC board meeting, which will determine Mr Coates’s future, or how it factored into the decision to extend the tenure of the ASC chairman. “The appointment was under advanced consideration before Mr Hunt came in,” the spokesman said. “Mr Hunt met Mr Wylie and confirmed the ASC wanted to head in the same direction as the government and re­affirmed the appointment.

“Mr Hunt has significant ­respect for John Coates as well.”

For the first time in 26 years, Mr Coates will face a challenger for the AOC presidency at the May 6 annual meeting, after sports commission member and Olympic gold medallist Danni Roche announced last week she would stand for the position.

Mr Turnbull singled Ms Roche out for praise at an Olympic fundraising dinner in Melbourne last June.

In a speech in which he ­acknowledged Mr Coates and Mr Wylie, he also said: “I have to mention our great friend Danni Roche, a gold medallist demonstrating that you don’t have to be six foot tall to be an Olympic athlete.”

Mr Coates is confident of ­retaining his position. In an interview on ABC radio yesterday, he said: “Oh, absolutely.”

He also said he did not see Mr Wylie’s reappointment as a message to him from the government.

“They are happy he’s doing a good job — it’s up to them, they’re entitled to reappoint him,’’ he said.

“It has nothing to do with us.”

The Coates camp would be expected to seize on any supposed political interference with the AOC election because it would support his claim Mr Wylie was trying to compromise the organisation’s independence.