02 July 2024 – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has released the 2023 Olympic Solidarity and NOC Services Annual Report, highlighting the support provided to the Olympic Movement throughout 2023, a crucial year in the preparations for the Olympic Games Paris 2024. The report showcases the numerous Olympic Solidarity programmes and initiatives that help National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and their athletes at every step of the way to the Games.

With the theme “Getting Ready for the Olympic Games Paris 2024”, the report outlines the direct support given to athletes in 2023 through a total of 1,260 individual scholarships from 154 NOCs. This number has since risen to 1,331 athletes from 159 NOCs, covering 26 sports.

Olympic Solidarity’s holistic approach

Olympic Solidarity programmes focus on athlete development, the training of coaches and sports administrators, and promoting the Olympic values. While athletes’ preparation generally draws the most attention, enabling an athlete to reach their full potential takes much more than good training sessions. This report highlights the holistic approach required for success.

Beyond rigorous training, athletes thrive thanks to the support systems around them. The report delves into how Olympic Solidarity and NOC Services enhance coach training, bolster NOC resilience, and elevate grassroots sport and the promotion of the Olympic values.

Supporting athletes on the road to Gangwon 2024, Paris 2024 and Milano Cortina 2026

With a particular focus on athletes and NOCs with the greatest needs, the Olympic Solidarity scholarships ensure that athletes from all backgrounds have a chance of competing on the world’s biggest stage, thus ensuring true universality and diversity at the Olympic Games. The support provided through these scholarships is showcased in the report through the story of the Jordanian taekwondo athlete Julyana Al-Sadeq, who is also part of the group of 10 athlete scholarship-holders who are currently sharing their journey to the Games on IOC.org.

“I have always dreamed of competing on the Olympic stage,” she says. “When I discovered the Olympic Solidarity programme, I knew it was a perfect opportunity to turn that dream into a reality. This programme is a game-changer for me, providing financial support. It has allowed me to focus on my training without the added stress of financial burdens. It has greatly enhanced my skills and performance to be stronger and more confident, to be more determined and more disciplined in the sport.”

In addition to individual scholarships, 206 Olympic summer sports teams – 112 women’s and 94 men’s teams – from 135 NOCs benefitted from the OS Team Support Grant programme in 2023. This number has since risen to 215 Olympic summer sports teams – 116 women’s and 99 men’s teams – from 140 NOCs.

The launch of the scholarships for the next Olympic Winter Games, Milano Cortina 2026, took place in 2023. In the first year of this programme, Olympic Solidarity awarded 197 individual scholarships to athletes from 39 NOCs. Just like for Paris 2024, Olympic Solidarity is also offering support to teams on the road to Milano Cortina 2026. In 2023, it supported a total of 17 teams: 11 women’s teams, 4 men’s teams and 2 mixed teams.

2023 was also a key year for the final preparations for the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024. Olympic Solidarity’s Youth Athlete Development Programme played a crucial role in equipping young athletes with tailored training opportunities provided by International Federations (IFs) in partnership with Olympic Solidarity.

Continuous training for over 6,300 coaches

Paris 2024 will make history as the first Olympic Games to have full gender equality in terms of athletes; however, a real gender gap still exists today in the number of female coaches. 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 WISH programme – the Women in Sport High-Performance Coach Pathway.

The report highlights a two-week skateboard camp in California in November 2023, where coaches from the WISH programme were brought together with 15 athletes from 13 nations. Ewa Niedzielska, a WISH participant and manager of Italy’s street national team, recalls the importance for young female athletes to see the possibility of becoming a coach. “For us, and for the kids, they saw they could do this. Because they saw us doing it,” Niedzielska said. “They saw that girls can do it.”

In total, Olympic Solidarity provided support to over 6,300 coaches in 2023, through two programmes:

• Technical courses for active recognised coaches, offering them the opportunity to improve their skills in planning, physical conditioning, mental preparation or nutrition. A total of 285 courses took place in 2023, benefitting more than 5,900 coaches, including more than 1,500 female coaches, from 133 NOCs.
• Olympic scholarships for coaches cover continuous training in sports sciences, sport-specific training or tailor-made training at a high-level training centre, university or IF-run centre. In 2023, Olympic Solidarity awarded 393 scholarships to coaches from 140 NOCs.

Stronger together

In 2023, the solidarity of the Olympic Movement was felt in its support to NOCs around the world. The Olympic Movement announced an emergency fund of USD 1 million to help the Olympic community, refugees and displaced people in areas affected by the devasting earthquake that hit Türkiye and Syria in February 2023. The IOC, the Olympic Council of Asia and the European Olympic Committees each donated USD 250,000, while the Olympic Refuge Foundation made available USD 260,000 for assistance to the Olympic community, the local population and refugees in Türkiye.

The Olympic values were spread by NOCs and partners worldwide in 2023 through Olympic Solidarity’s Values Programme and Olympism365, the IOC’s strategy to strengthen the role of sport as an important enabler for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). Throughout the year, in addition to delivering hundreds of Olympic values projects that increase access to safe sport and its benefits, NOCs also contributed to advancing the UN SDGs using sport through their engagement with Olympism365-supported partnerships.

Olympic Solidarity and NOC Services Annual Report 2023
Read the full report here

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