Els van Breda Vriesman-Commandeur (, 18 March 1941) is a Dutch

sports administrator Sport management is the field of business dealing with sports and recreation. Sports management involves any combination of skills that correspond with planning, organizing, directing, controlling, budgeting, leading, or evaluating of any organiza ...

and jurist. Els Commandeur was born in 1941 in the Dutch city of

Enschede Enschede (; local ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the province of Overijssel and the Twente region of the eastern Netherlands. The east of the urban area reaches ...

. She studied law and was a field hockey player, achieving a position in the Dutch national youth team. She has been a sports administrator since the early 1980s, best known for her positions in

field hockey Field hockey (or simply referred to as hockey in some countries where ice hockey is not popular) is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with 11 players in total, made up of 10 field players and a goalk ...

. She was a board member of the

Royal Dutch Hockey Association The Royal Dutch Hockey Association (, KNHB) is the official governing body of field hockey in the Netherlands. It governs both the indoor and outdoor field hockey leagues, as well as the Netherlands national field hockey team and the Netherlan ...

(the Dutch governing body of field hockey) for 14 years (until 1994), and was a representative to the

International Hockey Federation The International Hockey Federation, commonly known by the acronym FIH, is the international governing body of field hockey and indoor field hockey. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland. FIH is responsible for field hockey's major int ...

. Between 1989 and 1993 she was also board member of the Dutch Olympic Committee. In 1987 she was appointed as the technical delegate for the female field hockey tournament at the

1988 Summer Olympics The 1988 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIV Olympiad () and officially branded as Seoul 1988 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 17 September to 2 October 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. 159 nations were represe ...

Seoul Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...

. She was chair of the technical commission of the Federation, and was from 1994 its secretary-general. In 2001 she was elected as president of the Federation, with an agenda for renewal of the sport. As such, she was also a representative in the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based i ...

and member of various IOC committees. After she lost her re-election in 2008 from

Leandro Negre Leandro définition : * Super Intelligent ( environ 200 IQ) * Beau et musclé * Aime les proteines * Veut dire homme Gorille et Lion super rapide See also * Leandra (disambiguation) {{disambiguation, geo ...

, she also resigned from those positions. In 2010 van Breda Vriesman was appointed as Officer in the

Order of Orange-Nassau The Order of Orange-Nassau () is a civil and military Dutch order of chivalry founded on 4 April 1892 by the queen regent, Emma of the Netherlands. The order is a chivalric order open to "everyone who has performed acts of special merits for ...

for her work as volunteer for field hockey and sports.

Personal life

Van Breda Vriesman is married has three children. Besides field hockey, she has also cycled and played golf.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Breda Vriesman, Els van International Hockey Federation Dutch female field hockey players Dutch sports executives and administrators Dutch International Olympic Committee members 1941 births Living people Women sports executives and administrators 20th-century Dutch sportswomen