Fresh face: Yeoh, seen here with Todt, on the final day of the 141st IOC session in Mumbai, India, yesterday, where she was one of eight new members voted in. — Photo taken from Yeoh’s Facebook page
MUMBAI: Malaysia’s Oscar-winning actor Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh has been voted into the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The first Asian woman to win an Academy Award – when she scooped best actress for Everything Everywhere All At Once earlier this year – was elected by 67 votes to nine, with one abstention.
She was one of eight new members voted in on the final day of the 141st IOC session in Mumbai, India, yesterday.
When the result was announced, Yeoh stood up and placed her hand on her heart. She and the other newly-elected members then took the Olympic oath.
The 61 year old, who was accompanied in Mumbai by her husband Jean Todt, the former president of motorsport governing body FIA, then received a member’s medal from IOC president Thomas Bach.
Before the vote, Britain’s Princess Anne, the chair of the IOC’s member election committee, introduced Yeoh as “a Malaysia junior squash champion”.“Sadly, her other skills took her away from her sporting life, but she had a very fulfilling career and a lot of interest in sport throughout that,” she said.
Yeoh’s Hollywood breakthrough came when she was cast in 1997 Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies opposite Pierce Brosnan, and she made her reputation in martial arts movies including Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.She was voted in yesterday alongside Israel’s first Olympic medallist Yael Arad; Hungarian businessman and sports administrator Balazs Furjes; former Olympic medallist and politician from Peru Cecilia Tait; and German sports entrepreneur Michael Mronz.
All five had previously been proposed as individual members by the IOC’s executive board in Sept. — AFP
