The Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) are to offer an Olympic athlete full voting rights and a seat on the executive board. At a meeting today in the Edmund Burke Theatre in Trinity College, Dublin, current and former Olympic athletes will embark on a process that should culminate in the formation of the first Olympic Athletes' Commission. The meeting will discuss the form and shape of the proposed commission and design a blueprint of a draft constitution as a discussion document. The commission will then nominate an athlete to take his or her place on the OCI executive board.

By co-incidence, the announcement comes a day after the Irish Sports Council announced it would be carrying out an investigation into the whole "Sydney Experience" after a series of public claims and counter claims, much of it involving the OCI.

The Athletes' Commission is in fact the second athlete's body to come on stream, following the formation of the Athletes Forum two weeks ago. The OCI say they "do not have any problem with the recently formed group" as it comprises athletes from sports outside of the Olympic disciplines. Athletes from five Olympiads are eligible for selection to the new commission, which means those who represented Ireland in the Summer Games in Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000 and the Winter Games in Lillehammer 1994 and Nagano 1998 are eligible.