Ex-Olympic table tennis champion gains IOC membership

Former South Korean Olympic table tennis champion Ryu Seung-min has won his bid for International Olympic Committee membership, an impressive career transition for the former teen prodigy.

Among 23 candidates, Ryu finished second in the voting by 5,185 of 11,245 participating athletes at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics to earn one of four seats available on the IOC's Athletes' Commission.

Ryu earned 1,544 votes, while the winner, former German fencer Britta Heidemann, had 1,603 votes. Hungarian swimmer Daniel Gyurta was third with 1,469, followed by Russian pole vault legend, Yelena Isinbayeva, with 1,365.

The ballot was open from July 24 to midnight Wednesday. An athlete could vote for up to four candidates.

Ryu is the second South Korean to win a seat on the Athletes' Commission, after Moon Dae-sung, the 2004 Olympic taekwondo gold medalist.

Moon is one of four outgoing members whose eight-year terms will end. Moon was suspended last month over plagiarism in his doctoral dissertation.

Countries can have one member each on the commission.

Ryu won the 2004 Olympic gold in the men's singles, and added a team bronze in 2008 and a team silver in 2012.

South Korea has one other IOC member in Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, who was elected in 1996 but has been bedridden for two years.

There are 15 members on the Athletes' Commission. Though they each have an eight-year term, they enjoy the same rights as other IOC members, including voting on Olympic host cities. (Yonhap)