ST PETERSBURG (REUTERS) - Former Olympic pole vault champion Sergei Bubka will announce his bid for the presidency of the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday, a source close to the Ukrainian has told Reuters.

"He will be making his announcement later today," the source told Reuters on Tuesday.

Bubka will join Germany's Thomas Bach, Singapore's Ng Ser Miang, Wu Ching-kuo of Taiwan, Puerto Rican Richard Carrion and Swiss Denis Oswald in a six-way race for one of the biggest jobs in world sport.

The Ukrainian six-time world champion, who won gold at the Seoul 1988 Olympics, is a member of the powerful IOC executive board as well as a world athletics (IAAF) senior vice-president.

Before deciding to run for the top Olympic job, Bubka, still the world record holder in his sport, was seen as one of two likely candidates to succeed Lamine Diack as head of the International Association of Athletics Federations.

The other is London 2012 Games chief Sebastian Coe.

The IOC will elect the successor to Belgian surgeon Jacques Rogge, whose 12-year stint at the helm comes to a mandatory end, at its session in Buenos Aires on Sept 10.

All but one of the IOC presidents in the history of the organisation have been Europeans.