Nawal El Moutawakel, the first woman from an Islamic nation to win an Olympic medal, has been appointed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to chair the Evaluation Commission for the 2012 Olympic Games. Along with ten other IOC members and experts also appointed today and one athlete representative to be named later, El Moutawakel will be responsible for visiting the five candidate cities and preparing an evaluation report to be used by the IOC membership while selecting the 2012 host city.
El Moutawakel was an Olympic champion in the 400m hurdles at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and became a member of the IAAF Council in 1995; Secretary of State, responsible for Youth and Sport, to the Minister of Social Affairs in Morocco in 1997; and an IOC member in 1998.
“We have here an excellent team, and I am particularly pleased that Nawal El Moutawakel has accepted to lead it. As a former Olympic champion, she has a great knowledge of the Olympic Games and what it takes to organise them” explained IOC President Jacques Rogge during today’s announcement.
The commission will also analyze and report on candidature files (often referred to as the “bid book’”) that will be submitted by the cities on November 15, 2004. Site inspections will occur in February and March of 2005 and the commission will publish its report following in May. The election is scheduled for July 6 in Singapore.
Also named to the commission were IOC members Els van Breda Vriesman of the Netherlands, Paul Henderson of Canada, Patrick Jarvis of Canada, Mustapha Larfaoui of Algeria, José Luis Marco of Argentina, Ser Miang Ng of Singapore and Sam Ramsamy from South Africa.
Experts appointed were Simon Balderstone, Philippe Bovy of Switzerland and Bob Elphinston of Australia.
“The Evaluation Commission plays a key role in assessing the Candidate Cities’ ability to host the Olympic Games” Rogge remarked. The Evaluation Commission selects which of the five bids will be submitted for the election ballot and since IOC member visits to candidate cities were banned by the IOC after the bribery scandal in the late 90’s, the IOC membership relies heavily on the commission reports when they cast their ballots.
Paris, New York, Moscow, London and Madrid are in the running for the 2012 Games.
