LAUSANNE, Switzerland, June 20 (Xinhua) — International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach awarded the World Health Organization the Olympic Cup for 2021, with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus awarded the Olympic Order right here on Tuesday.
“The WHO’s help was crucial to these Olympic Games (2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics). Without this assistance from the WHO, these Olympic Games could not have been organized in such a safe and secure way for all the participants,” Bach stated after the ceremony on the Olympic House.
Bach described Ghebreyesus as “brother” for his assist and recommendation through the COVID-19 pandemic to arrange the Games in Tokyo in 2021.
“Your promise came months before the opening ceremony, when nobody could foresee how the situation would finally evolve. I think today I can reveal that your strong support was met with great scepticism and even with internal resistance at the WHO. From that moment, I knew that the Olympic Movement could trust you. I knew that in you, I have found a true brother,” Bach stated.
Responding to his award, the Director-General stated: “I thank in particular the WHO mass gathering team in Geneva, which strongly supported both the Tokyo and Beijing organising committees to hold safe and successful Games during the COVID-19 pandemic. These two awards reflect the WHO’s commitment to make sport healthier and safer.”
The IOC and the WHO have a partnership that stretches again to 1984, and the 2 organizations signed a brand new cooperation settlement in May 2020. In 2022, a brand new joint program between the IOC and the WHO was signed, and the collaboration has led to numerous joint initiatives and packages for more healthy communities by means of sport, the most recent being the Let’s Move marketing campaign for this 12 months’s Olympic Day.
The Olympic Cup was created in 1906 by IOC founder Pierre de Coubertin. The Olympic Cup is the very best distinction for a company with a confirmed report of selling the beliefs of the Olympic Movement.