Australian Olympic official John Coates was elected president of the Court of Arbitration for Sport on Tuesday, defeating Dick Pound of Canada.
Coates defeated his fellow International Olympic Committee member to win a four-year term in a vote of the court's 20-member management body, the International Council of Arbitration for Sport.
The court and its new president agreed not to disclose the vote count, although the outcome was ''close,'' CAS secretary general Matthieu Reeb told The Associated Press.
Coates, who sits on the IOC executive board, is president of the Australian Olympic Committee. He has been a member of the ICAS since it was formed in 1994 to run the court independently of the IOC, and a vice president for 15 years.
Pound, a former IOC vice president and ICAS member, was defeated in a CAS election for the second time. He lost to Italian official Mino Auletta in 2008 in a vote for the interim president of world sport's highest court of appeal after the death of founding president Keba Mbaye from Senegal.
The ICAS also chose two vice presidents. Gunnar Werner of Sweden was re-elected and board member Michael Lenard of the United States was elevated to replace Coates.
The CAS began work in 1984 to rule on disputes in Olympic sports.
It later became the appeals court for decisions such as doping rulings made by international federations, which recognize the authority of CAS in their statutes.
The CAS handles around 300 appeal and arbitration cases each year at its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and regional offices in New York and Sydney.
Coates' primary task is to manage the court's annual budget of $9 million. More than half its funding is provided by the Olympic movement and the rest is earned from case fees.
