26.07.2019
Turkish Olympic Committee vice-president Hasan Arat has been named chair of the European Olympic Committees (EOC) Coordination Commission for the third edition of the European Games due to take place in Kraków and the Malopolska region of Poland in 2023.
The announcement was made at the EOC Executive Committee's third meeting of 2019, held during the ongoing European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) in Azerbaijan's capital Baku, host of the inaugural edition of the European Games in 2015.
Arat, an EOC Executive Committee member, formed part of the 23-strong panel that made up the EOC Coordination Commission for the 2019 European Games, held in Minsk last month.
He was previously the head of Istanbul's bid for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games awarded to Tokyo.
"I'm very honoured and humbled by the decision of the Executive Board and I will do my best to make the third edition a great Games," Arat told insidethegames.
"I will work with the Kraków and Malopolska people, together with my Executive Board.
"I'm looking forward to seeing the first meetings kickoff and during the Istanbul Olympic bid chairmanship I had some good experience of how to organise the Games because I worked for two years with my friends in Turkey.
"And with the experience of Baku 2015 and Minsk 2019 and all these things, I will do my best for the European Olympic Committees and the host country, and the city as well."