Primo Nebiolo

Primo Nebiolo (14 July 1923, Turin – 7 November 1999, Rome) was an Italian sports official, best known as president of the worldwide athletics federation International Association of Athletics Federations.

Primo Nebiolo was the ideator of the IAAF Continental Cup.

As an active athlete in his younger days, Nebiolo was a long jumper. He later studied law and political science and became a businessman in construction. Nebiolo became president of the International University Sports Federation, which among other things arranges the Universiade, in 1961. From 1969 to 1989 he was the president of the Italian Athletics Federation. He became a member of the IAAF council in 1972, president of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations in 1983 and a member of the International Olympic Committee in 1992. He played a role in winning the 2006 Winter Olympics bid for his home city Turin.

In 1981 Nebiolo became president of the International Association of Athletics Federations as a result of Horst Dassler of ISL's desire to gain more influence within the IAAF and to ensure that ISL retained the IAAF's marketing rights. Unsure of his influence with the IAAF president Adriaan Paulen, Dassler saw Nebiolo as a potentially more friendly ally and so put into action a plan to replace Paulen with Nebiolo. With the next presidential vote scheduled to happen in Moscow in 1980, Dassler used the US boycott as an excuse to have it postponed until the IAAF's next congress in Rome the following year, giving him more time to garner support for Nebiolo. He then advised Paulen that it would be wise for him to declare his candidacy early, as it would discourage candidates other than Nebiolo from announcing they were running and potentially diluting Nebiolo's vote. Dassler's last act was to convince Paulen that Nebiolo had already gained too much support for Paulen to win and that in his own interests, he should bow out. Paulen did so allowing Nebiolo to win the IAAF presidency unopposed.

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