FIH President Leandro Negre and CEO Kelly Fairweather met the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, on 7 October 2015 in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The gathering, which also included IOC Director General Christophe De Kepper and IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell, was a great opportunity to discuss the implementation of Olympic Agenda 2020, the Hockey Revolution, preparations for next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the role of athletes as well as joint projects in the field of sport development.
Leandro Negre congratulated the IOC President on the success of Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC’s strategic roadmap for the future of the Olympic Movement.
The FIH is fully supporting the strategy which offers many links to the FIH’s own ten year strategy, the Hockey Revolution. The core ambition of the Hockey Revolution is for hockey to be, in ten years’ time, a global game that inspires the next generation.
To get there, the FIH has launched various initiatives, including the development of a fan focused entertainment portfolio and of world-class TV production and distribution.
The IOC President was also provided with an update on Hockey 5s. Following the tremendous success of Hockey5s at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, China, and as part of the Hockey Revolution, short-form hockey will play an integral part in FIH’s event portfolio moving forward. The aim is to integrate a version of short-form hockey into the international hockey scene whilst also increase opportunities for mixed gender competitions.
The new format will facilitate access to hockey in all corners of the world and thereby increase the universality of the sport.
The FIH expressed a desire to work with the Olympic Channel on this exciting project which is aimed at inspiring youth to participate and become hockey fans.
You can learn more about the Hockey Revolution here.
With less than a year to go to the Olympic Games in Rio, talks also focused on the Games’ preparations and the hockey test event coming up in November.
Qualification for the Olympic hockey events are in full swing with ten of the twelve teams qualified. The final events are taking place later this month – the Oceania Cup in New Zealand and the Africa Cup for Nations in South Africa.
The meeting showed that the well-being of athletes features high on both the IOC’s and the FIH’s agendas. FIH Athletes Committee Chair Michael Green and fellow Committee member Marsha Cox will meet the IOC President at the IOC’s International Athletes’ Forum taking place in Lausanne later this week.
