Change in governance at the Chinese National Olympic Committee (COC). Meeting on Wednesday September 7 in an extraordinary general meeting, the body has a new president. Gao Zhidan (photo above), 59, current director of the General Administration of Sports, was elected to the top post after a secret ballot. He succeeds Gou Zhongwen. In his first presidential speech, the new strong man of the Chinese Olympic movement stuck to the fundamentals. He insisted on the work accomplished by the COC in recent years, particularly for the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, before ensuring that the priority was now to accelerate preparations for the Paris 2024 Summer Games, those Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Games, but also the Asian Games organized at home, in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. Initially planned for this year, the continental event was postponed until next year due to the health crisis.
