COLORADO SPRINGS: The United States could be reduced to only members of the International Olympic Committee after Larry Probst announced his intention to retire as president of the United States committee at the end of the year.

Probst, 68, took over a crisis-hit organisation in 2008 and his exit follows that of chief executive Scott Blackmun last February. Probst will be succeeded by long-serving USOC board member Susanne Lyons.

Both senior figures of the USOC will thus have left in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal. The former doctor of the American Gymnastics Federation has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for sexual abuse on 265 gymnasts.

The US has two other IOC members in executive board member Anita DeFrantz and athletes commission delegate Kikkan Randall, the Olympic cross-country ski champion last February.

Probst had held a mixed status on the IOC board since, as long-time boss of Electronic Arts, he had a major interest in e-sports while IOC president Thomas Bach has long exorted a need for the movement to bring young people out from behind their computer screens and into active sports.

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