Gilbert Felli was a clear choice for the award for Outstanding Contribution at this year’s SportBusiness Sports Event Management Awards.
The Award recognised the 61-year old’s role as Olympic Games Executive Director and the way he has carried it out, earning the respect of the hundreds of politicians, officials, executives and sportsmen and women he encounters as he criss-crosses the world on a mission to ensure that each successive edition of the Olympic Games builds on the lessons of the last and adds something to the body of knowledge and experience which will enable future organisers to write their own chapters in Olympic history.
Typically, Felli wasn’t able to be in London to accept his Award from IOC Executive committee member Sir Craig Reedie. Instead, he was thousands of miles away in Singapore, in discussion over the organisation of this year’s inaugural Youth Olympic Games, a significant extension of the Olympic event portfolio which sends out clear signals about the IOC’s intention to promote sport and Olympic values among a generation with fewer sporting touch points and more leisure options than any in history.
But the Award was accepted with characteristic dignity and humility.
“It is a great honour for me. Little did I think when I first started out as a young volunteer in event management, almost 50 years ago, that one day I would end-up looking after the organisation of the Olympic Games,” he says.
“It just shows where volunteering in sports events can take you and I hope that it may inspire a few young volunteers out there to keep giving their time and energy in the service of sports.
“Of course, organising the Olympic Games - is undoubtedly a team effort, so I also dedicate the award to all of the people, who have helped to stage inspirational and excellent Games over the years. It is their work and dedication that has allowed the Games to flourish and for the Olympic values to continue to be appreciated the world over. I just hope that through my work, I have been able to contribute to keeping the Games and sport, where they deserve to be, on the gold medal step of the podium.”
When it comes to sport, Gilbert Felli owns the ‘Been There - Done That’ T-shirt. He has been a national team official, a ski coach, played ice hockey and competed on the professional ski circuit in the USA. And his bond with the Olympic Games goes back more than half a century when, as a youngster, he listened avidly to radio coverage of the 1956 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina, Italy.
“I would wake up in the middle of the night to listen to the Olympics on the radio. It represented something magical for me and for everybody who loves sport. It is simply the top event that brings out the best performances by the world’s best athletes,” he says.
In 1964, when the Winter Games were held in Innsbruck, Austria, Felli was no longer sharing the experience at a distance. He was revelling in the atmosphere of his first Olympic Games .
Having been involved in the European Youth Ski championships, held on the Innsbruck pistes immediately ahead of the Games, he had simply stayed on and unknowingly embarked on a lifetime’s journey with the Games.
Now his role is the all-consuming matter of delivering the world’s biggest and most complicated sports events from Soup to Nuts. It’s one of the biggest jobs in sport and while it can be simplified, one suspects a detailed job description would go on for page after page.
For the full interview see the latest edition of SportBusiness International published February 1.
