Venezuelan Vito Ippolito is elected FIM President

It is finally the Venezuelan Vito Ippolito who will occupy the post of president of the International Motorcycling Federation. The first non-European elected to this post, he was preferred to the three other candidates, including the French Jean-Pierre Mougin.

Delegates from 79 national motorcycling federations, gathered in Brazil for the 123rd FIM Congress at the Fiesta Bahia Hotel Conference Center in Salvador, have just elected Venezuelan Vito Ippolito (photo) for four years as president of the International Motorcycling Federation (FIM).

Mr. Ippolito succeeds the Italian Francesco Zerbi, outgoing president after three terms.

"Among the four candidates (Vito Ippolito, Hans-Robert Kreutz, Jean-Pierre Mougin and Jos Vaessen) who took part in the first round, none obtained the necessary majority", says the FIM:"MM. Ippolito and Vaessen, having obtained the best results, took part in the second round and Mr Ippolito was elected with 75 votes against 70 for Mr Vaessen".

The French Jean-Pierre Mougin, president of the French Motorcycling Federation (FFM) and vice-president of the FIM, therefore ultimately failed to convince his peers, nor the German Hans-Robert Kreutz or the Dutch Jos Vaessen.

A Venezuelan national, Mr. Ippolito is 54 years old. Married and father of three children, it is the eldest son of Andreas Ippolito, driver and manager of the Italian team Venemotos, who in the 70s and 80s raced pilots such as Johnny Cecotto and Carlos Lavado (champion of the world in Grand Prix 250 in 1983 and 1986).

Brother of Claudio Ippolito (motorcycle rider of the 1970s), Vito Ippolito has been president of the FMV (Venezuelan Motorcycling Federation) since 1992, after having been a member of the FIM Road Racing Commission from 1984 to 1990. He then had held the post of vice-president of the FIM from 1990 to 1996, then that of first vice-president since 1997. He also chaired the Latin American Motorcycling Union (ULM) from 1984 to 1998.

Since the creation of the FIM in 1904, this is the first time that a national of a non-European country has been elected president..

We should also point out that the National Federations of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Montenegro have been accepted as new members by the FIM General Assembly, which also gave the Board of Directors a mandate to adopt a FIM logo. "modernized", which will be presented at the Annual Conference in Geneva in February 2007. The current logo (see above) did indeed reflect the beginning of the … last century. !

Eric MICHEL – Photo DR

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