Indian Olympic Association secretary-general Randhir Singh announced on Tuesday that he would not seek re-election when the General Assembly meets next year.
This would effectively mean that the veteran administrator will retire from sports administration once his existing tenures in various sports bodies come to an end.
"I would like to inform that in the 2012 General Assembly meeting of Indian Olympic Association, I will not be standing for any post in the Olympic movement in India," Randhir wrote to his colleagues in the IOA.
The 65-year-old insisted that he took the decision in order to make way for youngsters.
"I am looking forward to make way for the youngsters. There are a lot of good young administrators. As a sportsman you want to retire at the top, and similarly as an administrator I want to leave when I am at the top," Randhir said.
Stating that he has already served the Olympic movement in India for a long time both as a sportsperson and sports administrator, Randhir made it clear that he would be completing his tenure with various sports bodies.
"I was elected to the IOA as a joint secretary in 1984 and as the Secretary General of the IOA in 1987. At present I have one year to complete my tenure in the IOA till 2012.
"I have also been elected for the sixth time unanimously as the Secretary General of the Olympic Council of Asia. The last elections took place this year and my tenure with the OCA will be till 2015," he said.
"In Association of National Olympic Committee (ANOC) I was elected in the year 2002 as a Member of the Executive board and I have been re-elected many times since then.
"I have been elected again last year for a term of four years till 2014. I was also elected member of the IOC in 2001," Randhir, who is currently the sole representative for India on the International Olympic Committee," he added.
A former Olympic-level trap and skeet shooter, the 1979 recipient of the Arjuna Award, said it will be 60 years next year from the time he witnessed the first Olympics at Helsinki, Finland, in 1952.
"My own connections as a sportsman with the Olympics movement in the country began in 1963, when I participated in the pre-Olympic Games at Tokyo. My last international competition was the Asian Games in Hiroshima in 1994.
"It was the first time in history that an office bearer who was also the Secretary General of a Continental organisation (Olympic Council of Asia), was competing in the Asian Games," said Randhir.
Randhir competed at five Olympic Games from 1968 to 1984 in Mixed Trap. His best Olympics performance was 17th at the 1968 Olympics, two points behind Karni Singh and four points from the bronze medal.
