Advertisement
Sports Now

Michelle Kwan to co-chair International Olympic Committee conference in L.A.

By Helene Elliott
Sports ColumnistFollow
Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

The Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games announced Thursday that figure skater Michelle Kwan, a five-time world champion, nine-time U.S. champion and twice an Olympic medalist, and movie producer Frank Marshall, a five-time Oscar nominee, will be co-chairs of the fifth International Olympic Committee Women and Sport 2012 Conference, to be held early next year in Los Angeles.

The event will take place Feb. 16-18 at the JW Marriott at L.A. Live.

The Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, which promotes Olympic ideals and organizes bids to hold the Games here, will organize and stage the event in conjunction with the U.S. Olympic Committee.

Advertisement

“It’s an honor to co-chair and participate in such an important international event,” Kwan, a U.S. public diplomacy envoy, said in a news release. ‘Historically, this conference has played a meaningful role in identifying ways to improve and increase participation of women in the world of sport around the globe. Women athletes are making progress; for the very first time, the 2012 Olympic Games in London will showcase women competing in every sport on the program. I look forward to this conference and to the continued advancement of women in sports.”

Marshall, co-founder of Amblin Entertainment with his wife, Kathleen Kennedy, is a former USOC executive.

‘Women continue to make great strides in achieving leadership roles, in many industries such as entertainment and business,” he said. “However, a gender gap persists particularly in the upper echelon of sport management positions. The conference will bring together women and men from around the world to explore ways to change this dynamic.”

The theme of the event is ‘Together Stronger: The Future of Sport.’

More information is available at www.seeuthere.com/2012womenandsport and at www.sccog.org

ALSO:

Moscow will host World Figure Skating Championships

-- Helene Elliott

Sports Now
Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

Advertisement