(ATR) Taking center stage at the Association of National Olympic Committee meetings in Bangkok this week will be the inaugural Gala Awards Dinner.
The ANOC Gala is the first awards ceremony of its kind, celebrating and honoring the outstanding achievements of Olympic athletes and NOCs from London 2012 and Sochi 2014.
Attending the marquee event to be held at Bangkok’s Centara Convention Center will be all Olympians receiving awards as well as representatives from all 204 NOCs, IOC members, international federations, future organizing committees and candidate cities.
Thirteen individual and team awards will be presented on Friday evening: best male and female athletes from London and Sochi, best male and female teams from Sochi, most successful NOCs from London and Sochi, breakthrough NOC from London, and awards for outstanding performance and lifetime achievement.
"We want the event to be a true celebration of our diversity and a festival of sporting achievement," said ANOC president Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah.
"Part of what makes ANOC so special and unique is it represents 204 countries from all around the world. Sport has the power to bring us all together and unite us, and that is what we will be celebrating at the ANOC Gala Awards Dinner.
"The event will be about more than individual athletic performances," said Sheikh Ahmad, who was elected president of ANOC in April 2012. "It will also be about promoting the tireless and sometimes unrecognized work the NOCs do for their athletes."
Embellishing the highly anticipated program will be cultural performances by each of the continental associations paying tribute to the diversity among NOCs.
Friday’s Gala Awards Dinner will be broadcast live in Thailand and distributed to more than 25 broadcasters around the world with a potential reach of 350 million households.
IOC member and former equestrian champion Mikaela Cojuangco-Jaworski from the Philippines and Brazilian actor Juliano Cazarré will co-host the event.
The Gala Awards were officially approved by the 64th ANOC Executive Council during a meeting attended by IOC president Thomas Bach in Lausanne on July 18.
Big Opportunity for 2022 Winter Games Bids
As the international promotional phase opened on November 1, 2022 Winter Olympic candidates Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan will both present to the ANOC General Assembly on Friday.
Each bid city will be allotted 15 minutes to impress ANOC delegates from the world’s 204 national Olympic committees. A Q&A session will follow at the proceedings with IOC boss Bach expected to be present at the two-day general assembly in the Thai capital.
"It will be their first presentations ever to the international sports movement that is here," Lindberg said. "I think it is very important both for the candidates and the NOCs. It is their only opportunity to address the NOCs, and we look forward to the presentations with great interest."
Busy Bangkok Agenda
A busy events schedule this week began on Tuesday with eight ANOC commissions and working groups meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel, one of two venues being utilized over the upcoming days.
The ANOC Executive Council and Olympic Solidarity commission are scheduled for meetings on Wednesday, while the continental associations will convene on Thursday.
The 19th ANOC General Assembly will take place on Friday and Saturday morning at Bangkok’s Centara Convention Center.
Additionally, Bach and the IOC will provide an update on Olympic Agenda 2020 on Friday morning.
This week of ANOC meetings is the largest ever in the organization’s history, which dates to 1979, with nearly 1,000 delegates expected to attend.
"We really think that we are on the way to being a much more well-known organization than we used to be," ANOC secretary general Gunilla Lindberg told Around the Rings.
"We have interesting presentations, and it’s fantastic to be at an ANOC General Assembly," Lindberg said. " With all the NOCs here, it’s bigger than the United Nations. It’s absolutely the biggest peace movement in the world."
Written by Brian Pinelliin Bangkok
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