FIH Vice President Annabel Dillon was awarded an International Olympic Committee (IOC) Women and Sport Trophy in Lausanne yesterday for her outstanding contribution to sport in Singapore and Asia.

Mrs Dillon was one of five continental recipients of the awards to mark International Women’s Day at a special ceremony at the Olympic Museum. The overall award was won by Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, President of the Organising Committee for the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad in Athens.

The winners were chosen by the IOC Women and Sport Commission, chaired by IOC member Anita L. DeFrantz, among the dozens of candidatures submitted by the National Olympic Committees and International Olympic Sports Federations.

After captaining the Singapore national hockey team for 10 years, Mrs Dillon has become a great sports leader and in 2004 was the first woman elected as President of the Singapore Hockey Federation, the same year she was elected to the position of Vice President of FIH.

She is also a member of the Singapore National Olympic Council and was Chef de Mission for the Singapore delegation at the Athens Olympic Games.

The Women and Sport Commission chose Mrs Angelopoulos-Daskalaki for her effort and passion in organising the Athens Olympic Games. According to the Commission, Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki is a model to be followed by other women who want to get involved in sport and its administration.

The Athens Olympic Games, of which she was the main protagonist, were an ideal platform for promoting women’s sport with women’s participation exceeding the 40% mark for the first time.

The other continental winners were Marguerite Rouamba Karama (Burkina Faso/Africa) for services to football, Orna Ostfeld (Israel/Europe) for basketball, Donna Lopiano (USA/America) for softball and Lynne Bates (Australia/Oceania) for swimming.

Created in 2000, the IOC “Women and Sport” Trophy is awarded to a woman or a man (former athlete, coach, administrator or journalist) or to an organisation that has worked to develop, encourage and strengthen the participation of women and girls in physical and sports activities, in coaching or in administrative and decision-making structures, as well as for the promotion of women journalists and women's sport in the media.