Lausanne, Switzerland, April 1, 2020: More than 1,600 athletes from 185 National Olympic Committees and the Refugee Athletes who are receiving Olympic Solidarity funding for Tokyo 2020 will continue to enjoy this support up to the new dates of July 23 to August 8, 2021.
The four specific OS programmes are:
*Olympic Scholarships for Athletes Tokyo 2020
*Team Support Grants
*Refugee Athlete Support for 48 participants
*Olympic Games Subsidies.
“This is great news for the athletes around the world. It will ensure that the principles of solidarity and universality will be fully respected and will not be affected by the postponement of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020,” said Kirsty Coventry, Chair of the IOC Athletes’ Commission.
“Athletes are at the heart of the Olympic Games and will never be left behind, even under these exceptional circumstances that we are currently in.”
Olympic Solidarity was created more than 50 years ago and is aimed at assisting all the NOCs, particularly those with the greatest need, through multi-faceted programmes prioritising athlete development, training for coaches and sports administrators and promoting the Olympic values.
World Programmes, Continental Programmes and IOC Subsidies for Participation in Olympic Games cover the objectives of the NOCs, which are mainly to improve their functioning and organisational ability, create or develop efficient structures, organise training courses at various levels and profit from the technical and financial resources available which, in turn, will benefit their athletes.
In the framework of the 2013-2016 quadrennial plan, 12,000 NOC activities were supported worldwide by Olympic Solidarity, including:
*2,000 scholarships for athletes
*1,500 training courses for coaches and sports administrators
*750 initiatives to promote the Olympic values.
At the Olympic Games Rio 2016, 101 medals were awarded to Olympic scholarship-holders: 33 gold, 26 silver and 42 bronze.
Source: www.olympic.org