With another Olympics approaching, the AOC announced that Gosper died on Friday morning following a short illness.
“Kevan was one of the true giants of the Olympic movement, not just in Australia but globally,” AOC president Ian Chesterman said.
“His loss will be felt enormously by so many of his friends who are gathering in Paris for the Olympic Games. There will be so many there from across the world who will have a heavy heart today with the news of Kevan’s passing.
Kevan Gosper presents Cathy Freeman with her gold medal at the Sydney Games.
“Kevan’s impact in Australia was enormous, as a former president of the AOC and a lifetime servant to sport in this country. But internationally his contribution was equally significant.”
Bertand said Gosper also had a significant impact in global business. While running Shell’s operations in Australia, he helped convince the Dutch-based company to invest in extracting natural gas from the North West Shelf. More than 40 years on, it is Australia’s largest resource development project.
Throughout his career as a sports administrator, Gosper was involved in some of the biggest issues confronting the Olympic movement. One of the most controversial was his decision to back the Australian government, on national interest grounds, in pushing for all Australian athletes to boycott the 1980s Moscow Games.
He has since publicly lamented that decision, saying that is athletes, rather than foreign governments, who are most hurt by sporting boycotts.
Former ABC broadcaster Tracey Holmes has just completed a podcast series documenting Gosper’s life and career. The project began during the pandemic years and the final episode was recorded 10 days before his death.
Holmes said she admired the self-belief which drove Gosper and also, his willingness to admit fault when he got things wrong.
Although Gosper had an aloof public persona, Holmes said this was partly explained by a physical impairment few people knew about.
When Gosper was running in America for a US college, a starter’s gun left him permanently deaf in one year. “From that moment he always had his chin in the air and his head tilted sideways because he was listening to everybody through his good year and trying to lipread them sideways,” Holmes said. “He was such a tall and imposing guy that he looked haughty.”
Gosper was born and raised in Melbourne and served as the city’s chief commissioner – an office which briefly replaced that of Lord Mayor. Despite living and working for extended periods abroad, he continued to call Melbourne home until he retired to Noosa with his wife Judy.
McGeoch visited Gosper in Noosa shortly before he died. He said that had former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch not stayed so long in the job, Gosper would have been his natural successor.
“Samaranch kept going and going and going. He was a hugely successful president but by the time he’d had enough, Kevan was too old,” McGeoch said.
“During the course of the Sydney bid he was living in London. He was fantastic in helping me with building relationships. The IOC had all these important people as members who weren’t easy to see, but they would always see him.”
Australian Sports Commission chief executive and former champion swimmer Keiren Perkins described Gosper as a “true leader” in Australian and international sport.
“On behalf of the Australian Sports Commission, I would like to extend my condolences to Kevan’s family and friends and pay tribute to his extraordinary service to sport,” Perkins said.
“His foundational leadership has seen the AIS grow from eight sports to an internationally recognised sporting hub, which has helped Australian athletes, including myself, succeed on the world stage for more than four decades.”
Gosper is surived by his wife Judy, children Dean, Brett, Richard and Sophie and extended family. After a funeral service on Tuesday, the Gosper family still plan to travel to Paris for the Olympics. As McGeoch explained: “It’s what Kevan would have wanted.”
Source Agencies
