The Olympic spirit in India is waking up and growing, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said at the IOC Executive Committee meeting on Thursday ahead of the October 15-17 IOC session in Mumbai.
The IOC session is returning to India after a gap of 40 years. New Delhi had hosted the 86th edition of the IOC session in 1983.
The IOC session is the supreme decision-making body of the Olympic movement. It discusses and decides on the key activities of the global Olympics movement, including adoption or amendment of the Olympic Charter, election of IOC members and office-bearers and election of the host city of Olympics.
The prestigious session is set to be the start of a new era of engagement between the country’s youthful population and the Olympic movement. Having won seven medals at the last Olympics in Tokyo, the highest haul ever, including a first ever individual Gold medal in Track & Field, and returning from the recently concluded Asian Games with the highest medal tally ever, India is at the cusp of emerging as a sporting powerhouse.
“We could really see and realize that the Olympic spirit in India is waking up and growing. We’re seeing the very positive results of the Indian team at the Asian Games in Hangzhou with a record number of medals they won. We can see on our Olympics social media that in the meantime, India is the number two in the followers of the Olympics,” Bach said on Thursday.
“Together with our IOC colleague and friend Nita Ambani, I visited Reliance Foundation and the programmes they’re offering there to the kids and youth with regard to their sport and education. And I must say, I am really deeply impressed by what is being done there by Reliance and her team, because you see there are kids from all over India at this centre. Most of them are from underprivileged families,” Bach added.
Nita Ambani became the first Indian woman to be elected as an IOC member in 2016 and made a compelling pitch at the 139th IOC session in Beijing in February 2022 for Mumbai to host the 2023 IOC session, following which the city received overwhelming endorsement for its bid with 99% of the votes.
“The children are being offered school education but, at the same time, are being given the opportunity to train to become athletes. This is something that is exactly reflecting our Olympic values and our approach. To see that it is being done by a private entity, which is the Reliance Foundation, is very, very impressive and very encouraging,” Bach said.
“And it is also greatly supported by the political authorities. We had a meeting with the chief minister and his staff in Maharashtra, and they are also in full support for the sports movement. So we hope very much that we can receive some positive signals from the IOA in the near future,” the IOC president said.
The IOC session will be hosted at the state-of-the-art Jio World Convention Centre in Mumbai. Situated in the heart of the city at Bandra Kurla Complex, the JWC is the largest convention centre in India and started operations in early 2022. The grand theatre at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre (NMACC) will host the Opening ceremony while the exhibition hall (pavilion) will be the venue for the session meeting.
Comments
0 comment