(ATR) Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles is the destination address for delegates attending this week’s 5th World Conference on Women and Sport.
The thoroughfare – renamed from 10th Street to honor the 1932 Summer Games – runs right by L.A. Live, a $2.5 billion entertainment complex that includes opening ceremony venue Club Nokia and host hotel JW Marriott.
IOC organizers expect upwards of 750 representatives from National Olympic Committees, international federations, non-government organizations, universities and other stakeholders of sport in more than 130 countries.
The three-day brainstorm of sorts coincides with the 40th anniversary of Title IX, the landmark legislation that opened high school and college athletics to women, and will be supported by the U.S. Olympic Committee and Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games.
Sessions will operate around the theme "Together Stronger: the Future of Sport" with a focus on identifying ways to improve and increase the participation of women in the world of sport.
Events begin Thursday midday with a welcome ceremony at the offices of LA84, the legacy organization of the last Los Angeles Games. Anita DeFrantz, LA 84 president and IOC Women and Sport chair, will receive a proclamation from deputy mayor Aileen Adams in front of USOC CEO Scott Blackmun, London 2012 chief Sebastian Coe, chair of the UN’s Commission on Status of Women Marjon V. Kamara as well as organizing committee co-chairs Frank Marshall and Michelle Kwan, also a two-time Olympic figure skating medalist.
The actual conference kicks off Thursday evening with an opening ceremony and the IOC’s annual Women and Sport Awards. Six trophies, one world and five continental, will be given to individuals and organizations in recognition of outstanding contributions to the development of women’s participation in and administration of sport.
IOC president Jacques Rogge will do the presenting alongside Coe, DeFrantz, Kamara, Kwan, Marshall, USOC chair Larry Probst and Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
Rogge, Coe and Kamara will star again Friday morning with UN Women deputy executive director Lakshmi Puri and the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s president of the coordinating committee of womenparliamentarians Nurhayati Ali Assegaf in a panel titled "Leaderships Views on Women in the World of Sport" and moderated by DeFrantz.
From the IOC, a majority of the 19 female members are on the weekend’s agenda, including DeFrantz, Nawal El Moutawakel, Rania Elwani, Dagmawit Girmay Berhane, Nicole Hoevertsz, Beatrice Allen, Barbara Kendall, Lydia Nsekera, Angela Ruggiero and Marisol Casado, the president of the International Triathlon Union.
Also from the federations, cycling chief Pat McQuaid, basketball secretary general Patrick Baumann and boxing boss C.K. Wu are either panelists or moderators for some of the conference’s dozen-plus sessions with topics such as "Partnerships for Progress," "Setting thePace for a Sustainable Responsibility," "Women, Sport and the Media," "Matters Medical" and "Business of Sport," among others.
And from the 2020 bid cities, Doha CEO Noora Al Mannai tells Around the Rings she will attend as does Baku’s Konul Nurullayeva, the other woman running a 2020 campaign.
Madrid 2020 International Relations CEO Theresa Zabell is also en route, ATR is told, with Tokyo and Istanbul expected to send delegations as well.
Though the IOC won’t be lifting its ban on international promotion until January 2013 – April’s ANOC Assembly is the only known exception – the 2020 bidders will meet and greet, give interviews to media and otherwise make their presence known by the time Saturday’s presser with Rogge and Sunday’s meeting of the IOC Women and Sport Commission close out the conference program.
Perhaps the biggest star in attendance won’t be the IOC president or the London 2012 chair, though. Saturday morning’s plenary on "Role Models and Leadership" features women’s empowerment activist and onetime Olympic hopeful archer Geena Davis, also an Academy Award-winning actress.
This is Women and Sport’s first time in the U.S., after all, and this is Los Angeles.
Written by Matthew Grayson.
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