Michelle Yeoh: Oscar-winning actress set to become IOC member
Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh is set to become a member of the International Olympic Committee.
The 61-year-old former Malaysian junior squash champion has been included on a list of eight new proposed members.
In March, Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win the best actress award at the Oscars for her role in "Everything Everywhere All at Once".
Her proposed IOC membership will be ratified at its session in Mumbai next month.
She joins Israel's first Olympic medallist, Yael Arad, Hungarian businessman and sports administrator Balasz Furjes, Cecilia Roxana Tait Villacorta, a former Olympic medallist and politician from Peru, and German sports entrepreneur Michael Mronz as the five proposed individual members by the IOC Executive Board.
Sweden's Petra Soerling, head of the International Table Tennis Federation, and South Korean Kim Jae-youl, President of the International Skating Union, are up for election connected to their roles as international federation heads.
Mehrez Boussayene, president of the Tunisian Olympic Committee, is also up for election as an ex-officio member.
"These candidates bring added value to the work of the IOC because of their experience and diverse expertise in different walks of life," said IOC president Thomas Bach.
"What they all have in common is their love of sport and their strong belief in the Olympic values and what the IOC stands for."
Yeoh found Hollywood fame in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, playing a Chinese femme fatale opposite Pierce Brosnan's 007. By then she was already a celebrity in Asia, having made her name in Hong Kong.
She also starred in martial arts movie Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the 2005 period drama Memoirs of a Geisha and the 2018 romantic comedy, Crazy Rich Asians.
