The Swiss-Ski vice-president was elected by delegates of the National Olympic Committee's member associations.

Schmidhalter's appointment completes the Executive Council of Swiss Olympic.

This election was supposed to be concluded on November 20, but technical difficulties arose during the second ballot, meaning the last seat of the Executive Council could not be filled at that time.

Instead, Schmidhalter was confirmed yesterday in a virtual meeting, with delegates casting their vote to an independent notary's office, which then added up the votes.

On the fourth ballot, Schmidhalter achieved an absolute majority.

"I am happy that the Executive Board is now complete and I look forward to working with the previous and new members," Swiss Olympic President Jürg Stahl said.

"The mix of experience and renewed vigour is right, and I am convinced that the Executive Board can achieve a great deal for Swiss sport in the next four years."

Following the election, Stahl and Swiss Olympic director Roger Schnegg informed member associations about measures that Swiss Olympic is taking to prevent and uncover abuse in sport.

There are plans to set up an independent reporting office to manage complaints for all of Swiss sport, but Swiss Olympic accepts it is not realistic to have this in place before 2022.

In the meantime, it will set up an initial counselling centre for all people wanting to report safeguarding or abuse issues, starting operations from January 4.

This centre will be unable to carry out any investigations, but specialists from Swiss Olympic will listen to complaints and, if necessary, forward the incidents on to appropriate institutions.

Additional awareness campaigns, a survey of Swiss Olympic card holders and training for members' reporting offices will be carried out in the first quarter of 2021, Swiss Olympic says.