CEV President and Senior Vice-President attend EOC General Assembly in Athens
News
CEV President Aleksandar Boričić and CEV Senior Vice-President Renato Arena are currently attending the European Olympic Committees (EOC) General Assembly in Athens together with a large number of Olympic officials as well as representatives of other international sports Federations.
On Thursday, the General Assembly elected Spyros Capralos, the current President of the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC) and a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), EOC President for the next four-year term after he received 34 votes, with his Danish rival Niels Nygaard earning 16.
The Greek official is the ninth President of the EOC and succeeds Nygaard, who had held the position in an acting capacity since the death of Slovenia’s Janez Kocijančič last June.
Spyros Capralos“What an honour, thank you so much for your confidence. Through unity, trust and solidarity, we can raise the EOC to the next level. We have to remain united and bring solidarity with our members. There are many challenges ahead, such as the European sport model, and we need to work on the recovery after the pandemic. Integrity, better governance and transparency - this is what we intend to do. We also need to find sustainable solutions for the future to ensure lasting success for our events."
Newly elected President of the European Olympic Committees (EOC)
As many as 46 National Olympic Committees were present in the room in the Greek capital, with four others joining remotely. Daina Gudzinevičiūtė of Lithuania was elected unopposed as vice-president, while Italy’s Raffaele Pagnozzi beat Slovakia’s Jozef Liba to secure another term as secretary general.
The new 12-member EOC Executive Committee includes six women. Mr Zlatko Mateša, President of the Croatian Olympic Committee and a EuroVolley 2021 Ambassador to the Olympic family following his appointment as such as the CEV Champions League Super Finals in Verona, has secured re-election and will continue to serve as an EOC ExCom member for another four years.
The CEV has been a close partner of the EOC for many years, working together on the delivery of the biennial European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF), the Games of the Small States of Europe (GSSE) as well as on the inaugural and highly successful European Games held in Baku in 2015.
The first day of the EOC General Assembly concluded with a gala dinner held at the iconic Panathinaiko stadium, the venue of the very first Olympics in modern history back in 1896.