Solidarity Funding Gets Increase in New Budget

(ATR) The 2017-2020 Olympic Solidarity budget will be around 16 percent higher than the previous quadrennial.

The next Olympic Solidarity budget was approved by the IOC Executive Board today, for a total of just over $500 million. It will provide funding to National Olympic Committees in need of financial support to develop athletes and will also pay for 21 programs developed by the IOC.

Two new programs will receive Olympic Solidarity funding for the next four years. The IOC will contribute to refugee athlete support and an athlete career transition program. For the first time at the 2016 Olympics, a Refugee Olympic Team took part, and two refugee athletes participated at the 2016 Paralympics as independent athletes.

Pere Miró, Director of Olympic Solidarity, said in a statement that the increase of funds shows athletes continue to "remain at the heart of all our activity".

"The huge worldwide success of the Olympic Games Rio 2016 also means that the Olympic Movement continues to enjoy a sound financial situation," Miró said. "This enables us to distribute more than half a billion dollars over the next four years to the National Olympic Committees."

According to the IOC, 815 Olympic Solidarity scholarship holders participated at the Rio 2016 Olympics, for 172 different NOCs. The athletes won a total of 101 medals at the Games.

Stage Two of Candidature Files up for Review

The IOC 2024 Evaluation Commission working group will present its review of the recent candidature cities' files to the IOC Executive Board in December.

The working group reviewed stage two of the three cities' candidature files, which include information on the bid’s "Governance, Legal and Venue Funding." The working group confirmed in a statement the cities will transition into stage three of the bidding process, where the cities will deliver files on "Games Delivery, Experience, and Venue Legacy."

Budapest, Los Angeles, and Paris will have until Feb. 3 to deliver the third part of the candidature file. The IOC Evaluation Commission will then visit each city in April and May before delivering a final report on the three cities to all IOC members.

"Our work this week has focused on analyzing the cities’ Stage 2 submission, with a particular emphasis on the guarantees provided," Frank Fredericks, chair of the working group, said in a statement. "We also discussed the course-correction proposals from the Stage 1 submissions, as Olympic Agenda 2020 enables the cities to refine and improve their individual value propositions during the candidature."

Entourage Commission Meets

The IOC Entourage Commission will meet tomorrow in Lausanne.

The main mission of the commission is to support the groups of people who work with high performance athletes, and work with them to protect clean athletes. The commission is chaired by IOC member Sergey Bubka.

Written by Aaron Bauer

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