Lausanne 2020 Appoints New President

(ATR) Virginie Faivre, multiple-time world champion in freestyle skiing, will replace Patrick Baumann as the president of the Lausanne 2020 Organizing Committee.

Baumann had led the Youth Winter Olympics organizing committee as one of his many roles in the Olympic Movement. He died suddenly at the 2018 Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires in October.

Faivre, who like Baumann hails from Lausanne, will officially begin her work as president on January 7. She is scheduled to meet the media two days later for the first time.

"I was part of it from the beginning in 2013," Faivre said in a statement about her appointment. "Our victory at the IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur in 2015 was one of the highlights of my career. I feel a similar emotion today."

Lausanne 2020 has just one year to go until the event kicks off on January 9, 2020. Events will be spread around Switzerland, and a small cluster in France. Eight sports will be contested in 16 disciplines with the Olympic debut of ski mountaineering and women’s Nordic Combined. Around 1,880 athletes from 80 countries will participate in competition.

Faivre said that she "helped lay the foundations of the project" with Baumann and has worked closely with Lausanne 2020 chief executive Ian Logan over the last four years. She said the goal for the event is to "create vocations and a spirit of entrepreneurship amongst the youth".

"Virginie Faivre is part of the Lausanne 2020 DNA," Logan said in a statement. "She will further intensify the relations we have with sport and youth in the country, which are at the heart of the project. We are all looking forward to starting working with her."

Written by Aaron Bauer

For general comments or questions, click here .

25 Years at # 1: Your best source for news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com , for subscribers only.