Olympic Solidarity offers participating athletes and coaches a vital support system

This article talks about the International Olympic Community (IOC) that released the 2023 Olympic Solidarity and NOC Services Annual Report. The report outlines the direct support given to athletes in 2023 through a total of 1260 scholarships from 154 National Olympic Committees (NOCs). The number rose from this to 1331 athletes from 159 NOCs that covered 26 olympic sports.

Olympic Solidarity Programs focus on athlete development, the training of coaches, and sports administrators, and promoting olympic values. While athlete’s preparation generally catches the most attention, enabling the athletes to reach their full potential takes a lot more than training sessions.

Beyond rigorous training, athletes thrive because of the support systems around them. 

Supporting Athletes for Paris Olympics 2024

With a particular focus on athletes and NOCs that need the most support, the Olympic Solidarity scholarships ensure that athletes from all backgrounds get equal chances for representing their countries on the biggest stage. 

In addition to individual scholarships 206 olympic summer sports teams comprising 112 women and 94 men teams from 135 NOCs benefited from the OS Team Support Grant Program in 2023. 

The number has risen to 215 Olympic summer sports teams having 116 women and 99 men teams from 140 NOCs.

Continuous Training for 6300 coaches

Paris 2024 will make history as the first Olympic games to have full gender equality regarding athletes. As part of the IOC’s efforts, to address this challenge, Olympic Solidarity in cooperation with the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF), the Winter Olympic Federations (WOF) and a number of IFs, launched the Women in Sport High Performance Coach Pathway (WISH programme).

The report highlights a two week skateboard camp in California that took place in November 2023 in which coaches from the WISH programme were brought together with 15 athletes from 13 nations. 

In total, Olympic Solidarity provided support to 6300 coaches in the year 2023 with the help of two programs. Those were;

1. Technical courses for active recognised coaches offering the opportunity to the coaches to improve their skills in planning, physical strength, mental preparation and nutrition. A total of 285 courses were undertaken in 2023 that benefitted up to 5900 coaches that included 1500 female coaches from 133 NOCs.

2. Olympic Scholarships for coaches were given that covered sports sciences, sport specific training, or tailor made training at high level centres, and universities. In 2023, Olympic Solidarity awarded 393 scholarships to coaches from 140 NOCs.