Phillip Walter Coles AM (20 July 1931 – 28 January 2023[1]) was an Australian sports administrator and canoe sprinter.
[4] He was the Australian Olympic Committee Secretary General from 1985 to 1993 and Director of International Relations from 1993 to 1999.
[3][5] Coles was forced to stand down from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Organising Committee due to being one of twenty four IOC members implicated in the Salt Lake City 2002 bidding bribery controversy.
It made him proud for the rest of his life to have led these athletes into the Olympic Stadium.
It was Phil who was key to our participation in Moscow 1980 and notwithstanding intense personal and public abuse.