The International Olympic Committee wants more women members. The IOC President Jacques Rogge is not satisfied and would like a gender balance amongst the members.
“I am doing my best but have a way to go to get more women on board," he said.
The International Olympic Committee wants more women members. The IOC President Jacques Rogge is not satisfied and would like a gender balance amongst the members.
“I am doing my best but have a way to go to get more women on board,“ he said.
The IOC has 115 members of which only 15 are women.
Four new members were elected on the final day of the 119th session including two women Rita Subowo from Indonesia and Princess Haya bint Al-Hussein from the United Arab Emirates.
Rogge doubted the IOC would achieve 50/50 status during his term in office but he was trying hard.
“The IOC needs to lead by example it is true we do not have enough women.”
The Olympic movement is performing much better in regard to the number of women athletes competing at the Games.
At the Beijing Games 45% of the athletes taking part will be women compared to 40.7% in Athens.
The IOC is also leading an overall push to get women appointed to leadership roles at all levels of sport. The gap is closing but again sporting bodies are being pushed to promote women.
Canadian IOC member Dick Pound suggested the IOC should withhold financial benefits to National Olympic Committees (NOC) and other Olympic sporting organisations who do not promote women and reach pre-determined quotas.
94.8% of NOC’s have at lease one woman on their executive bodies. 88.2% of International Federations have at least one woman on their executives.
The President of the Australian Olympic Committee, John Coates, backed the call for the involvement of more women in sport.
“We have three outstanding women on our Executive in Helen Brownlee, Lynne Bates and Victoria Roberts and there are more women waiting in the wings,” he said.
”We are also very fortunate to have six experienced and talented women on the AOC Athletes Commission.”
They are Lauren Burns, Jacqui Cooper, Natasha Barker, Victoria Roberts, Allana Slater and Brooke Wilkins.
“I am happy to say they out number the blokes,” Coates said.
AOC