On the occasion of the FIH Congress in New Delhi in November 2018, IOC President Thomas Bach was one of the recipients of the FIH President’s Award. However, at that time the IOC President could not make the journey to India due to other commitments. He therefore took the opportunity of the first meeting of the year of the FIH Executive Board today in Lausanne to come to the FIH headquarters where the Award was officially presented to him.
Thomas Bach stated: “I would like to thank FIH for bestowing this Award on me, which I of course share with the entire IOC family. FIH has undertaken remarkable efforts for the good of hockey, in order to make the sport more global and more attractive. The FIH Pro League is one example of that and after only a couple of weeks, it’s already a success. Sport plays a fundamental role in society and I would like to commend FIH for its gender equality policy, which really is best practice. A role model for many International Federations”.
“We at FIH fully support the strategic roadmap for the Olympic movement – Agenda 2020 – to strengthen sports in society and make the Olympic Games more sustainable. In fact, our Hockey Revolution links very well with the Agenda 2020. We are also very honoured that the IOC has chosen Women’s hockey as one of the four sports it will focus on ahead of Tokyo 2020 to – hopefully – have unified Korean teams participating in the Olympic Games. This objective is very dear to our heart as well, because we believe that hockey can contribute to making the world a better place”, said FIH President Dr. Narinder Dhruv Batra.
