Dr. Jos? Joaqu?n Puello was re-elected president of the Dominican Olympic Committee (COD). He defeated Milton Pinedo, president of the Federation of Sports Medicine with a vote 19-7 in his favor. Puello’s major accomplishment as president of the Dominican Olympic Committee has been to win the site of the Pan American Games for 2003. He believes, the winning of the site will force the government to focus on sports development and provide the funds to do so. Sports facilities in the DR suffer from the lack of maintenance, with the investment of millions of pesos having gone to waste for lack of upkeep funding from either the private sector, the communities or the central government. "We have a great challenge before us," said Puello who invited those that were not elected to be part of the Panamerican Commission to prepare the Pan Am Games. This will be Puello’s fifth term at the helm of the COD, since 1982. Other COD board members are Bienvenido Solano, president of the Dominican Boxing Federation as first vice president; Alexis Garcia, president of the Volleyball Federation as second vice president; Luis Mej?a Oviedo, president of the Softball Federation as secretary general; Antonio Acosta of the Dominican Wrestling Federation as co-secretary and Jaime Casanova, president of the Judo Federation as treasurer. Other members are Hector Duval, president of the Sailing Federation, Leonardo Monsanto, president of the Tae Kwon Do Federation and Angel Acosta, president of the Karate Federation.
