International Olympic Committee member Lambis Nikolaou was elected as one of IOC’s four vice-presidents on Saturday, in what was seen as a gesture of gratitude for Athens’s highly successful staging of the 2004 Olympics.

Nikolaou, 70, defeated Australia’s Kevan Gosper 49-45. Gosper had served two terms as vice-president in the past.

“I am overwhelmed,” Nikolaou said, choking back tears, after the vote. “I feel this honor is a reward you are giving to my country and myself,” he told the delegates to IOC’s 117th plenary session, which ended Saturday in Singapore.

Nikolaou, elected to the 15-member IOC executive board in 2001, replaces Russia’s Vitaly Smirnov, whose four-year term expired.

In an election to fill the vice-presidential seat once occupied by Korea’s Kim Un-yong, who resigned last month over allegations of corruption, Japan’s Chiharu Igaya defeated Gosper 51-42.

Nikolaou and Igaya join James Easton of the US and Sweden’s Gunilla Lindberg as vice-presidents. Singapore’s Ser Mian Ng was elected to Nikolaou’s vacated executive board seat. (AP, Kathimerini)