Ireland’s Pat Hickey was elected to a third term as President of the European Olympic Council in Rome on Friday, and will now be among Europe’s leading sports administrators through to the staging of the first European Olympic Games in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2015.
Hickey has been president of the Olympic Council of Ireland since 1989, and became only the second Irishman ever to serve on the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee in 2012.
The most important element of his term in charge of the European movement will be the first European Games where it is expected that over 5,000 athletes will gather to compete in 18 sports.
These wil include 3×3 Basketball and Beach Soccer for the first time and the European Games are planned to be held every four years in the year immediately preceding the main event.
The Olympics does stand out as a sporting event which highlights all sport to all nations and seeking to roll that beyond a four year cycle is an ambitious move.
The Winter Olympics takes place next year in Russia but interest there is limited to those countries with a tradition of winter sport and the European move is a bigger undertaking which seeks to emulate the relationship soccer has between its cycle of European and World Championships.
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