Bangkok, Thailand, December 5, 2024: The pressures and challenges facing elite athletes were outlined at the opening panel session of the OCA Safeguarding Workshop at the Intercontinental Hotel in Bangkok on Thursday morning.
Following the opening ceremony of the workshop, the Champions for Safeguarding in Sports panel discussion offered an eye-opening experience for the delegates from 43 National Olympic Committees.
The panel moderator was Singapore National Olympic Council Vice President Mark Chay, a two-time Olympic swimmer at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, and the three-strong panel was comprised of Valerie Tarazi (swimming, Palestine), Terry Tay (gymnastics, Singapore) and Shiva Keshavan (luge, India).
Valerie, who is the recently-elected Chair of the OCA Gender Equity Committee, outlined her experiences competing at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Regarding the effects of social media and online harassment, she admitted it was a difficult task. Palestine was under the spotlight in Paris, and she told the delegates she received a lot of positive posts and a lot of negative comments, too.
Responding to a question about mental health and well-being, Valerie said the IOC did a great job implementing mental health measures in Paris through the Athlete365 programme.
“It was difficult dealing with that coming from a war-torn country,” she said.
“There were eight of us and we were checking in with each other. As one of the senior members of the team, I took it upon myself to make sure that everyone was good to compete.”
Terry Tay, who retired from gymnastics this year after 24 years as an athlete, was elected a member of the OCA Athletes Committee at the Hangzhou Asian Games last year.
He highlighted the importance of the attitude and the role of the coach, who, in his case, did not put him under any pressure to compete so soon after suffering from Covid and fully supported his slow recovery to fitness.
Shiva, a six-time Winter Olympian and Vice Chair of the OCA Athletes Committee, said the sports world had changed considerably from his early days as an elite athlete and there were now policies and procedures in place to tackle issues that did not exist 20 years ago.
He also highlighted the importance of translating official documents and education programmes into various Asian languages to help promote safeguarding awareness throughout Asia.
“I would like to thank the OCA for organising this safeguarding workshop,” Shiva said. “This is the starting point. It is the first step. The OCA has a department specifically for safeguarding issues and is always available for the NOCs.”
