First winners of the IOC Sport and Photography Contest

The results of the first IOC Sport and Photography Contest were announced this week after an international jury, chaired by Zhenliang He, Chairman of the IOC Commission for Culture and Olympic Education, met and deliberated at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. Through this contest, the IOC is promoting one of its priorities, the association of sport with art and culture, in keeping with the idea of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games.

For amateur photographers only
The IOC Sport and Photography Contest is aimed at amateur photographers through the National Olympic Committees (NOC). Among its objectives: to inspire a broad-based interest in sports photography among the general public and increase public awareness of sports photography, amateur sport and traditional sports. All photos were entered into one of three categories (Category A: Photos of an event or occurrence; Category B: Portfolio/reports; and Category C: Portraits, illustrations, concepts) and were taken between 1 January 2006 and 14 November 2006.

Photographers from Argentina to the Virgin Islands
Photographers from 31 NOCs took part in the contest, shooting in total 466 photos (79 for category A, 248 for category B and 139 for category C). The participating NOCs were: Argentina, Azerbaijan, Brazil, Bulgaria, the People’s Republic of China, Chinese Taipei, Croatia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mongolia, Namibia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan and the Virgin Islands.

International winners chosen by an international jury
The winning photos were selected by an international jury, chaired by Zhenliang He and comprising IOC members Ching-Kuo Wu and Philip Craven, IOC Athletes’ Commission member Charmaine Crooks, Swiss photographer Luc Chessex and IOC Director of International Cooperation and Development Tomas Sithole, while Micha Bruinvels from World Press Photo Foundation was present in an advisory role. In category A, the winners came from the People’s Republic of China, Ukraine and Switzerland; while in category B, they were from Argentina, Chinese Taipei and Italy, and in category C, the People’s Republic of China came first, Italy second and Bulgaria third. These results fully reflect the originality and internationalism of the contest. The award-winning photos will be put on show at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne and published in a brochure.


List of all the winners
Category A
1st place: People’s Republic of China – Wen Jian You
2nd place: Ukraine – Igor Savchenko
3rd place: Switzerland – Manfred Schär
Highly recommended (diplomas)
Bulgaria – Lora Vasileva
Chinese Taipei – Yang Ming-Tsang
Japan – Noboru Koyama
Mongolia – Gurryenchin Erdenetuya
Korea – Dae-sung Kim

Category B
1st place: Argentina – Santiago Serrano
2nd place: Chinese Taipei – Chen Zhi-Yuan
3rd place: Italy – Diana Luciano
Highly recommended (diplomas)
Chinese Taipei – Jiang Fan-Zhou
Croatia – Kreœimir Mehièiæ
Czech Republic – David Vladimĩr
Switzerland – Stefan Munsch
Switzerland – Augustin Rebetez

Category C
1st place: People’s Republic of China – Ding Rui Liu
2nd place: Italy – Giorgio Prevedi
3rd place: Bulgaria – Nadezhda Pavlova
Highly recommended (diplomas)
Argentina – Sandra Dossenbach
People’s Republic of China – Shu Xian Wang
Croatia – Sanjin Kovaèiæ
Ecuador – Guillermo Saul Calderon Villareal
Egypt – Tarek Ahmed Tawfeik