Moynihan, who was today in Westfield Stratford City to unveil the Team GB House for the London 2012 Olympics, was hugely criticised when he spearheaded the BOA decision to dispute the Joint Marketing Agreement (JMA) signed by his organisation and the IOC back in 2005 in a row that centred on the allocation of surplus from the 2012 Games.

The row is said to have left Moynihan out-of-favour in IOC circles and his absence from the recent IOC Session in Durban, which saw Pyeongchang awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, was said by some to be because he was embarrassed to attend following the dispute earlier this year.

But Moynihan has refuted such claims stating that both the row and his absence in Durban were a result of his commitment to athletes.

"The contractual dispute is now well and truly over," Moynihan told insidethegames.

"It ran for four or five weeks in the press and got out of hand there.

"But my sole objective was just to make sure that the British Olympic Association maintained its status as a state of the art organisation with professional management, gold medal governance and the ability to have a strong balance sheet to support the athletes.

"Above all, my aim is to continually ensure that the BOA is an organisation that is athlete centred.

"I have no regrets about the way the BOA acted to defend the best interests of the athletes despite the way things were portrayed in the press.

"My life has always been focused on how I can best support athletes and to my dying day the athletes of today and tomorrow will be the driving force for the work that I do.

"So I am really pleased and proud of the BOA, the policy we have and the decisions we took around the contract dispute because it was all for the athletes.

"And it is because of my continued commitment to athletes that I didn't attend in Durban.

"I have given five speeches in Parliament in the last seven days and they have all been really important speeches for sport.

"They have been centred on sport in local communities, sport in the countryside and sport in schools.

"So for me, the priority was working for athletes in Parliament rather than going to Durban.

"But everything I hear from Durban was that it was a great success and many congratulations to the IOC and to everybody that was there for that."

Moynihan, who appears to have damaged his chances of IOC membership following the row, would not state whether he seeks a place in the elite group but he suggested he would be happy to serve athletes as an IOC member.

"My sole objective in life is to support the athletes and I will always do that in whatever capacity possible," he said.

"Whatever talk there may be about becoming an IOC member, that is for others to discuss.

"My focus is on the athletes and on serving them."

Britain currently has four IOC members with former BOA chairman Sir Craig Reedie, International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Sir Philip Craven, IOC Athletes' Commission member Adam Pengilly and the Princess Royal all current serving as members.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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