Sunday,
February 4, 2001 — Anita L. DeFrantz, member of the USOC
Executive Board, first vice president of the International
Olympic Committee (IOC) and vice president of FISA, the
International Rowing Federation, announced today that she is
standing for election as president of the IOC.
DeFrantz made the announcement in Dakar, Senegal where
she is attending a meeting of the IOC Executive Board.
“I
believe in the Olympic Movement and its goal to contribute to
building a peaceful and better world through sport.
Through my service to the Olympic Movement for 24
years, half of my life, I have seen its universal power to
unite people in a celebration of human excellence.
I have fought to protect it and nurture its growth.
IOC members have the responsibility to ensure that the
Olympic Movement endures.
I can do that most effectively as president of
the IOC utilizing the IOC’s fundamental beliefs of respect
and solidarity as well as the operating principles of
inclusion, transparency and accountability," she said.
DeFrantz was elected to the IOC on
October 17, 1986. On
September 4, 1997, she became the first woman in the 103-year
history of the IOC to be elected a vice president.
She is currently first vice president, the highest
position attained by an American within the IOC since Avery
Brundage was president. She
was first elected to the IOC's Executive Board on July 23,
1992.
A member of the 1976 and 1980 US Olympic
teams, DeFrantz won a bronze medal in rowing at the Montreal
Olympic Games. In
1980, she led the fight against the US government-led boycott
of the Moscow Olympic Games for which the IOC awarded her the
Bronze Medal of the Olympic Order.
DeFrantz served on the USOC Athlete’s
Advisory Council from 1976 to 1984 and has served on the USOC
Executive Board since 1977.
"The United States Olympic Committee is pleased that Anita
DeFrantz, an American bronze medalist in Rowing at the 1976
Olympic Games, has chosen to seek another dream, the
Presidency of the International Olympic Committee.
Anita has been at the forefront of the Olympic Movement
in the United States for two decades, and her contributions to
sport and to athletes around the world are truly
significant," said Sandy Baldwin, USOC president and
chairman of the board.
"I
am happy to hear that Anita DeFrantz has decided to seek the
presidency of the International Olympic Committee.
She has been a champion for athletes, for women in
sport, and for the Olympic Movement both in the United States
and around the world," added Bill Hybl, IOC Member from
the United States, President Emeritus, USOC.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
October 4, 1952, DeFrantz grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana.
She is a graduate of Connecticut College, 1974, and the
University of Pennsylvania Law School, 1977.
She was admitted to the Pennsylvania State Bar the same
year. Following a career in law and business, she joined Peter V.
Ueberroth at the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee to
plan the Olympic villages in 1981.
She became vice president and was responsible for
managing the Olympic Village at the University of Southern
California.
In 1985, DeFrantz joined the staff of the
Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles (AAF), the
organization established to manage the surplus from the 1984
Olympic Games. She
has served as the AAF’s president since 1987; successfully
managing the organization as it disbursed more than the
original endowment, while more than doubling its size.
Since 1993, she has served as vice
president of FISA, fulfilling a commitment to give back to
organizations that have made a difference in her life.
DeFrantz is also president and a member
of the Board of Directors of Kids In Sports, Los Angeles and
is a member of several boards including: Salt Lake City
Olympic Organizing Committee, Western Asset Trust, Inc., the
Martin Luther King Legacy Association, the Institute for
International Sport, Children NOW, Santa Monica College
Foundation and the Smithsonian National Museum of American
History. She is a trustee and steward of the Women’s Sports
Foundation.
DeFrantz has received numerous honors and
awards. She is
the recipient of the USOC’s Olympic Torch Award, the highest
recognition the United States Olympic Committee bestows for
service to the USOC, and holds honorary doctoral degrees from
several colleges and universities.
She has been named as one of the “Top 25 Female
Sports Executives” by Street & Smith’s Sports
Business
Journal and one of “The 100 Most Powerful Women In The
World” by The Australian Magazine. DeFrantz is the first non-French woman and second American
(Avery Brundage was the first) to be elected an associate
member of the Academie des Sports in France.
The election for president of the IOC
will take place July 16, 2001 at the 112th IOC Session in
Moscow. If
elected, DeFrantz would be the first woman and second American
to serve. Avery
Brundage was president from 1952-1972.
DeFrantz makes
her residence in Santa Monica, California.
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