Stanislav Pozdnyakov

In 2008 Pozdnyakov became head coach for the Russian national team in all weapons.[14][17] In 2009 he was appointed first deputy president of the Russian Fencing Federation.[14][17]

In June 2016 he was elected President of the European Fencing Confederation (EFC).[17] All Confederation Presidents are members of the Executive Committee of the International Fencing Federation (FIE).[17]

From 2016-18 Pozdnyakov was First Vice-President of the Russian Olympic Committee.[14]

In 2017 he received the "Order of Merit for the Fatherland” classe II for "the successful preparation of athletes who have achieved high sporting achievements at the XXXI Olympic Games in 2016."[14]

The "Olympic Athletes from Russia" neutral delegation for the 2018 Winter Olympics that Pozdnyakov managed, with Vladimir Putin.

In February 2018, he managed the "Olympic Athletes from Russia" neutral delegation at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, after Russia's team was banned for doping.[18] He was questioned by the press as to how it could be that he was managing the team, given that the Russian Olympic Committee had been suspended from the Winter Games, and he was the ROC's vice president.[19] Pozdnyakov responded: "The IOC decision says that the Russian Olympic Committee is suspended. The president and the general secretary for the Russian Olympic Committee are not able to participate in these games. But (there's) nothing about the vice president or other staff members of the Russian Olympic Committee."[19]

Since he was elected in May 2018, as Vladimir Putin's choice, Pozdnyakov has served as the President of the Russian Olympic Committee.[20][21][18] He was re-elected in 2022.[22]

In December 2019, after the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) banned Russia from all major sporting events for four years for tampering with laboratory data on doping, Pozdnyakov opined that the sanctions were inappropriate and excessive.[23] WADA imposed the sanctions after its executive committee concluded that Russia had planted fake evidence, and deleted files linked to positive doping tests in laboratory data that could have helped identify drug cheats.[23]

In June 2022, he was removed from his position as European Fencing Confederation (EFC) President at an Extraordinary Congress following a unanimous vote of no confidence in Pozdnyakov that March, due to his xenophobic conduct in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine which had commenced in late February 2022.[3]

In February 2023, Vadym Gutzeit, Ukraine's Youth and Sport Minister as well as the president of the Ukrainian Fencing Federation (and former Olympic champion sabre fencer) and the President of the National Olympic Committee of Ukraine, who had competed with Pozdnyakov when they were teammates from Russia and Ukraine on the post-Soviet Unified Team at the 1992 Olympics, said he had only contempt for Pozdnyakov.[24][10] Gutzeit blames Pozdnyakov for vocally supporting Russia's invasion of Ukraine.[10] Gutzeit said: "I don't want to talk to him. I don't want to know him at all. He is my enemy, who supports this war, who considers it an honor for athletes to take part in the war against Ukrainians, to kill Ukrainians. Therefore, for today and forever, this person does not exist for me.”[10]

In April 2023, Pozdnyakov expressed surprise that there was talk of Russian athletes losing motivation during their continued ineligibility to compete in major international events, as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[25]

In July 2023, a Russian effort to have Ukrainian three-time world sabre champion Olha Kharlan black-carded at the 2023 World Fencing Championships backfired dramatically.[26] Kharlan had offered her defeated Russian opponent a tapping of blades at the end of their bout, a pandemic substitute for handshakes, rather than a handshake.[26] Kharlan was briefly black-carded by the FIE, an hour after the Russian's protest was lodged, but upon the event being reviewed by the IOC its president granted Kharlan an automatic berth in the 2024 Paris Olympics, expressed empathy for what she had gone through, and had the FIE reverse itself.[26] Pozdnyakov railed against what he called the "duplicity" of the IOC, and accused it of picking a sides in a political conflict.[27]