(ATR) IOC member from Morocco Nawal El Moutawakel and just-retired German IOC member Walther Troeger are among the winners of the International Sports Press Association’s Fair Play Awards.
AIPS handed out the annual honors Thursday in conjunction with the International Fair Play Committee at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne.
El Moutawakel was one of three winners of the inaugural Power of Sport Award.
"Sport taught me honesty and determination, gave me respect for others and so many things that however much I am able to give back, it will never be enough," she said during Thursday’s ceremony.
Winner of the 400m hurdles in at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, she is the first female gold medalist from an Islamic nation and the first gold medalist -- male or female -- from Morocco.
She also led the IOC Evaluation Commission that studied the four 2016 bids and became the first-ever female chair of the IOC’s influential coordination commission, in her case for the Rio de Janeiro Games.
The other Power of Sport winners were late Icelandic Paralympic swim coach Halldor Gudbergsson and Beirut Marathon organizer May El Khali, who founded the event in 2003 after a life-threatening car accident sidelined her from competitive running.
Ed Moses, another 400m hurdler from the 1984 Olympics, won the Jean Borotra Troply for a career spent championing of drug-free sport.
"Fair play has certainly meant a lot to me. It has been a long fight and an ethical fight," said the two-time gold medalist and first-ever chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy.
"Anti-doping I’ve seen sport change from when it was virtually like war when it was US against the Soviet Union, East bloc versus the West, there were a lot of elements that led into more doping in sport."
Troeger, who retired from the IOC last year at age 80, was one of two winners of the Willi Daume Trophy for the promotion of fair play. As mayor of the Olympic Village during the 1972 Munich Olympics, he worked closely with Daume as a member of the organizing committee for the Games.
The other Willi Daume winner was Kenyan marathoner Tegla Chepkite Loroupe, who set up a series of peace marathons among tribes in her home country and has been named a UN Ambassador of Sport.
Iranian footballer Amin Motavassel Zadeh, Lithuanian decathlete Darius Draudvila and Chinese wrestler Gao Feng were awarded the Pierre de Coubertin Trophy for acts of fair play during competition.
Also Thursday in Lausanne, about 150 people attended a half-day symposium on illegal sports betting hosted by AIPS and opened by IOC president Jacques Rogge.
Written by Matthew Grayson.
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