Phil Coles, an Australian sports administrator and sprint canoer died on Saturday, January 28 2023, according to the Australian Olympic Committee. He was 91. Coles died after a brief illness, according to the AOC.
AOC president Ian Chesterman said Coles’ “service to Australian sport was immense.”
“Phil’s passing, after a lifetime in sport, is a sad day for the Olympic movement and for many involved in the wider sports community in Australia,” Chesterman said in a statement.
Phil Coles was instrumental in getting an Australian team to the 1980 Moscow Olympics despite a US-led boycott and later helped secure the 2000 Games for Sydney.
Coles was an IOC member from 1982 to 2011. He joined the AOC executive board in 1973 and was a founding member of the Oceania National Olympic Committee’s board of directors (ONOC).
In the 1983 Queen’s Birthday Honours, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for “service to sport,” and he was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1993.