(Bombay) Malaysian Michelle Yeoh, the first Asian woman to win an Oscar for best actress and former squash champion, was elected on Tuesday for four years to the International Olympic Committee during the body’s 141st session in Bombay.
Proposed by the IOC Executive Board in September, the 61-year-old artist was named by a large majority alongside former Israeli judoka Yael Arad, Hungarian sports leader Balazs Fürjes, ex-volleyball player and MP Peruvian Cecilia Villacorta, the German sports event organizer Michael Mronz and the head of the Tunisian Olympic Committee Mehrez Boussayene.
The session also elected two presidents of international federations because of their functions: the Swedish Petra Sörling, who heads the table tennis federation, and the Korean Jae Youl Kim, head of the International Skating Union.
Michelle Yeoh has never competed in the Olympics or held a leadership role in sport, but she is the best-known figure among the eight newcomers, seven months after winning an Oscar for her role in the screwball comedy Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The actress was nevertheless Malaysian junior squash champion – a sport for which the IOC has just voted for entry into the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles – and practiced dancing for a long time before getting injured and giving up a career as a ballerina. .
“I never dreamed of being an actress, but as a child I always dreamed of being an Olympic athlete! “, she confided in the mixed zone after the ceremony, explaining that she also practiced athletics, swimming and diving, and now simulated boxing and hiking.
To “join the family” of the IOC, she said, she “camped in front of the door of President” Thomas Bach, whom she met during his visit to Malaysia in 2015. “I am very lucky that he m listened and asked me what you all ask: “Why should I have a seat at this table?” I’m very happy that he finally gave me one. »
“I will use all the means available to me as an actress […] because we are able to reach people from different backgrounds,” she promised. Already an ambassador since 2016 for the United Nations Development Program, she felt that the refugee Olympic team could be “a very, very good starting point”, because she had “already worked” with displaced people.
Revealed from 1984 by a series of action films, alongside Jackie Chan and Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh emerged on the global scene in 1997 by playing the James Bond girl in Tomorrow Never Dies, before playing in successes like Tiger and Dragon, Memoirs of a Geisha and more recently Crazy Rich Asians.
With more than 50 films to her credit in 40 years, the actress has around ten projects in the works, including the new Avatar films.
She has long been the companion of Frenchman Jean Todt, a key figure in world motorsport, former director of the Ferrari Formula 1 team who also chaired the International Automobile Federation.
