IOC mourns death of Chinese sports reporter Gao Dianmin (updated)

The International Olympic Committee's press commission on Saturday mourned its Chinese member Gao Dianmin, who died on Friday while attending an Olympic meeting in PyeongChang.

Gao, 62, who has covered every edition of the Summer Olympics from 1984 to 2016 as a Xinhua News Agency reporter, died of a heart attack on Friday afternoon.

During Saturday's press commission meeting that started with a moment of silence for Gao, IOC senior media operations manager Anthony Edgar said Gao had made a special contribution to the cause of Olympic journalism, hailing him as "a great man, a bridge between eastern and western sports journalism."

Edgar awarded Gao an Olympic five-ring sculpture on which "Gao Dianmin, 20 years of outstanding service to the IOC press commission" was inscribed. A Chinese reporter who was also on the Olympic meeting will bring the sculpture to Gao's family.

Former Olympic press commission chief Kevin Gosper phoned into the meeting from Australia, expressing his condolences and saying he had lost "a great friend." Gosper noted that Gao's contribution to the Olympic Movement and Olympic journalism as a whole was "special and irreplaceable."

Gianni Merlo, president of the International Sports Press Association, said he had received generous help from Gao, calling him "the perfect representative" of Chinese sports journalists.

Lee Hee-beom, president of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, also expressed his condolences to Gao's family and to Xinhua, where he had worked for 39 years.

Gao joined Xinhua in 1977 after graduating from Dalian University of Foreign Languages. He had previously served at Xinhua as sports director and London bureau chief. He also served on the media committees of both the International Association of Athletics Federations and the International Volleyball Federation.

Gao, who mainly covered shooting, athletics and volleyball in his early career, was the first reporter in the world to break the news when Xu Haifeng won China's first ever Olympic gold medal in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

"Before the judge declared the result, I ran 30 to 40 meters into the media center and made a phone call to the editor," said Gao in an interview during the Rio Olympics. "In a time without the electronic scoring system, I was the first one to report China's first Olympic gold."

Gao was appointed as Xinhua sports director in 1998 and London bureau chief in 2011.

Gao also participated in the torch relay for the Athens, Beijing, London and Rio Olympics, along with covering eight Asian Summer Games from 1982 to 2010 and numerous world championships of different sports.

He is survived by his wife, Wang Ya, a daughter and a grandchild. Endit