Angelos Bolanaki

Angelos Bolanaki first met Pierre, Baron de Coubertin in 1906, which led to his appointment to the IOC in 1910. Bolanaki served as Secretary-General of the Egyptian Olympic Committee from 1911-30 and supported the idea of hosting an Olympic Games in Alexandria. Work was started on a stadium to host the 1916 Olympics, but the facility was not completed until 1928. In early 1932 Bolanaki changed nationally to Greek and resigned from the IOC on 21 November 1932, because he could no longer represent Egypt. This resolved a dispute among the IOC and the Egyptian sporting authorities who insisted that Bolanaki could no longer represent them. He was reinstated to the IOC on 8 June 1933 as a member for Greece.

Bolanaki was a good athlete as a youth, winning the French schools tennis championship in 1896 and he was Egyptian 100 and 200 metre champion in 1899 and 1900. He later became a wealthy industrialist. He served on the IOC until his death in July 1963, with a total tenure of 52 years, 214 days, a record for any IOC member, and he was the IOC Doyen from 1948-63.