Dubai: Anita DeFrantz, Vice-President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), will be one of the speakers at the 13th Dubai International Symposium for Sports Creativity, to be held on November 1 at the Palazzo Versace hotel under the theme ‘Empowerment of Women in Sport.’
DeFrantz, a member of the USA rowing team at the 1976 Montreal Summer Olympics and won the bronze medal in the women’s eight, has been one of the leading voices for gender equality in the Olympic movement and became the first female Vice-President of the IOC executive committee in 1997. She remained in the seat until 2001.
De Frantz made a return as IOC Vice President last month, elected to a four-year term at the 131st IOC Session in Lima, Peru, and the 13th Dubai International Symposium for Sports Creativity will be one of her first official appearance since her re-election.
Welcoming her participation, Moza Al Marri, General Secretary of the Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Creative Sports Awards, the organisers, lauded DeFrantz as a role model for women in sports.
“We are really proud that after the announcement of Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain — an Olympian and champion in equestrian sports, a UN Messenger of Peace, a former member of the International Olympic Committee and former President of the International Equestrian Federation — as a keynote speaker at the 13th Dubai International Symposium for Sports Creativity, we can announce the participation of Anita DeFrantz, the Vice President of the Organising Committee for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
“DeFrantz is one of the leading names in the Olympic movement and it is an honour to have her here and share her personal experience as an athlete and a top administrative official, and give her views on the empowerment of women in sport.”
An African-American, DeFrantz has also received numerous awards, honours and recognitions. In 2017, she was inducted to the LA Coliseum Court of Honour. Last year, she was given the Olympic Truce Award at the Rio Olympic Games and in 2011, Newsweek named her one of “150 Women Who Shake the World”, while French magazine L’Equipe picked her as one of the “10 Women Who Changed Sport” in the world in 2010.
