Empowering the Believe in Sport ambassadors

Over the past few years, the OM Unit PMC has built a strong network of Believe in Sport ambassadors who help raise awareness about the threat of competition manipulation among their peers, entourage members and officials.

These ambassadors are either active or retired athletes nominated by their National Olympic Committees (NOCs) or International Federations (IFs), covering various summer and winter sports, and regions or countries. To start with, they receive onboarding training to get equipped with the necessary know-how, messages and tools to conduct their activities in a meaningful way. Following this initial briefing, the IOC remains in close contact with its network of ambassadors, providing specific and relevant learning opportunities on an ongoing basis. In early March, the ambassadors received online training on the theme of intelligence and investigations, learning about important details such as reporting mechanisms and how betting information should be handled.

Education and knowledge exchange

Maria Barakat, an ambassador from Jordan, said after the webinar: “Having contributed already to many related educational activities in Jordan, I enjoyed this webinar for Believe in Sport ambassadors because it provided me with more in-depth knowledge on the topic. We got the opportunity to hear from the OM Unit PMC how intelligence is managed and how the reporting and investigations processes work. I appreciated that the team was open to answering questions and providing additional information, which helped me better understand how I can effectively contribute to creating a fair and clean sports environment.”

Fellow ambassador Ryan Nelsen from New Zealand said: “This webinar helped us better understand the phenomenon and expand our knowledge on the specific topic of intelligence and investigations. No doubt the insights we gained will help us to be even more efficient in our education efforts to our fellow athletes. I am looking forward to more educational opportunities and exchanges for the Believe in Sport ambassador community.”

The Believe in Sport ambassadors are also in good contact among themselves, exchanging their experiences and lessons learnt, permanently optimising the peer-to-peer communication on the important topic of preventing competition manipulation.