Pau Gasol to represent athletes on IOC board during Los Angeles Games
MILAN — Two-time NBA champion Pau Gasol was selected by Olympic athletes on Friday to serve on the IOC executive board until the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games.
Gasol secured his NBA championships in the city with the Lakers and has been part of a significant Olympic committee overseeing the Games since being elected as an International Olympic Committee member by athletes during the Tokyo Summer Games in 2021.
His No. 16 jersey has been retired and is displayed in the Lakers’ home venue, which will host gymnastics and boxing events during the Games. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.
Gasol’s ascent in Olympic governance to join the influential 15-member IOC board occurred during a meeting of the governing body’s athletes commission.
“This is a significant moment to assume the responsibility of leading our commission,” he stated in a release from the IOC.
Gasol is a five-time Olympian, contributing to Spain’s silver medal victories in men’s basketball at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games and the 2012 London Games, as well as a bronze medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
He is the first male athlete to occupy the IOC board position in 14 years. He succeeds ice hockey players Emma Terho from Finland and Angela Ruggiero from the United States, German fencer Claudia Bokel, and Kirsty Coventry, who was still competing for Zimbabwe in swimming when she became an IOC athlete member in 2013.
Coventry’s tenure as the athlete representative on the IOC board from 2018 to 2021 helped establish her platform for being elected last year as the first female president of the Olympic organization.
