MILAN (AP) — Two-time NBA champion Pau Gasol was picked by Olympic athletes Friday to represent them on the IOC executive board through the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Games.
Gasol won his NBA titles in the city with the L.A. Lakers and has been a member of a key Olympic panel overseeing the games since he was elected by athletes as an International Olympic Committee member at the Tokyo Summer Games held in 2021.
His No. 16 jersey is retired and hangs in the Lakers’ home arena that will host gymnastics and boxing at the Games. He was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2023.
Gasol’s rise in Olympic politics to join the influential 15-member IOC board came at a meeting of the governing body’s athletes commission.
“This is a big moment to be able to take on the responsibility of leading our commission,” he said in a statement published by the IOC.
Gasol is a five-time Olympian helping Spain win silver medals in men’s basketball at the 2008 Beijing Summer Games and London in 2012, and bronze in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
He is the first male athlete to take the IOC board seat for 14 years. He follows ice hockey players Emma Terho of Finland and Angela Ruggiero of the United States, German fencer Claudia Bokel and Kirsty Coventry, who was still competing for Zimbabwe in swimming when she joined the IOC as an athlete member in 2013.
Coventry’s term as the athlete delegate on the IOC board from 2018-21 helped build her platform to be elected last year as the Olympic body’s first female president.
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AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics