The 141st IOC Session meeting in Mumbai Tuesday elected eight new IOC Members, four women and four men, bringing the proportion of women on the IOC membership to 41.1 per cent.
Following a vote, the Session elected Balázs Fürjes, a keen sportsman and experienced sports administrator from Hungary, to the IOC membership. A member of the IOC’s Coordination Commission for the Games of the XXXV Olympiad, Brisbane 2032, Fürjes also chaired Budapest’s 2024 Olympic Games candidature.
The Session also elected Olympian and former Congresswoman from Peru Cecilia Roxana Tait Villacorta and Israel’s Yael Arad of Israel to the membership. Arad, a retired judoka, was the first-ever Olympic medallist from Israel, winning a silver medal at the Olympic Games Barcelona 1992. She was appointed president of the National Olympic Committee of Israel in November 2021, making her the first woman to hold this position. A volleyball player, Villacorta participated in three editions of the Olympic Games: Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984, and Seoul 1988 where she won a team silver medal.
Fürjes, Arad and Villacorta were all elected to the IOC membership as Independent Individuals.
At the same time, in accordance with Rule 16.1.1.1 of the Olympic Charter, which allows for up to seven IOC Members to be elected in special cases without a nationality or National Olympic Committee (NOC) requirement, the Session elected Michelle Yeoh from Malaysia and Michael Mronz from Germany as Independent Individuals. Producer and actress Yeoh is a dedicated road-safety campaigner, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Goodwill Ambassador and a campaigner for the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Meanwhile, entrepreneur and keen sportsman Mronz is an active sports manager in his native Germany, involved in the organisation of several important sporting tournaments and events.
Two candidates, one woman and one man, were also elected based on their functions within an International Federation (IF): Petra Sörling from Sweden, president of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), and Jae-youl Kim from the Republic of Korea, president of the International Skating Union (ISU). Meanwhile, Mehrez Boussayene of Tunisia was elected to the membership in his capacity as president of the Comité National Olympique Tunisien.
These elections bring the total number of IOC Members to 107.
