The imminent elections of the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) are destined to be ceremonial.

The Jamaica Observer understands that incumbent JOA President Christopher Samuda and sitting Honorary Treasurer Nichole Case are unopposed while members of Samuda’s slate, whose positions are being contested, have received overwhelming support.

Samuda’s slate includes incumbents First Vice-President Jacqueline Cowan and Second Vice-President Robert Scott, as well as sitting directors Gary Peart and Laurel Smith, and newcomers Nicole Grant Brown, president of the Jamaica Amateur Gymnastics Association; Karen Anderson, president of Squash Jamaica; and Anthony “Billy” Wilmot, president of the Jamaica Surfing Association. The slate has garnered 98 per cent of nominations received with each member receiving, individually, nominations from more than 80 per cent of the member associations and federations.

First Vice-President Cowan, who is the president of the Jamaica Volleyball Association and a member of a commission for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has as her opponent Raymond Anderson, the former long-standing vice-president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) who occupied that position in successive presidencies of the JFF and was, in his bid to elevate himself, defeated last year by Michael Ricketts in the associations’ top presidential elections. Anderson is without an association.

Ian Forbes of the Jamaica Administrative Athletics Association (JAAA) returns once more in a bid for the office of second vice-president as, in the last JOA elections in 2021, he was soundly beaten by Scott and, when he defaulted to contest a director’s position, he again lost.

Both Anderson and Forbes have only been nominated by two associations while a nomination was received from one of those associations for Osayimwese Osagboro, a retired teacher and president of the Jamaica Wrestling Association.

The elections will be held on Wednesday.