IFs and NOCs gear up for Tokyo 2020
With Tokyo 2020 approaching rapidly, International Federations (IFs) and National Olympic Committees (NOCs) have recently both stepped up their efforts in raising awareness about the risk of competition manipulation. Both of these key Olympic Movement stakeholders have encouraged their athletes and entourage members to take the e-learning course, which provides an overview of the topic as well as guidance on how to react when approached by untruthful people.
Supported by the Olympic Movement Unit on the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competitions (OM Unit PMC), many NOCs have organised dedicated webinars for their Olympic delegations to brief them about the rules and sensitise them to be careful in certain situations. In many cases, athlete ambassadors have been involved in these activities, with peer-to-peer communication proving highly successful. For instance, the NOC of Botswana worked with athlete ambassador Moses Jones (karate) to brief its Olympic delegation on how to prevent competition manipulation. This online training followed an institutional webinar organised by the NOC the previous day, targeted at National Federations and relevant national authorities like the police, seeking to enhance national cooperation in this field.
NOCs have also explored other means to reach out to their Olympic delegations. For instance, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee developed a “delegation app” for Tokyo 2020, which includes the e-learning programme and educational clips on the topic.
Meanwhile, the Chef de Mission of the Mexican NOC has been delivering one-to-one training with every member of the Mexican delegation, who will also receive a bracelet for Games time promoting the Olympic values and the fight against competition manipulation.
The Austrian NOC will include awareness-raising training on the prevention of competition manipulation as part of the uniform distribution days in early July and thereby cover all its Olympic team members.
In addition to these educational activities undertaken by the NOCs in their respective countries, the OM Unit PMC continues to organise advanced virtual training sessions for groups of NOCs to help them develop specific expertise on the prevention of competition manipulation. In mid-April, such training was organised for 60 NOCs from all continents, focusing on the education of their Olympic delegations for Tokyo 2020 and related communications.
At the same time, the OM Unit PMC is working closely with the IFs and their athlete ambassadors to prevent competition manipulation at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. For instance, ambassador Telma Monteiro from Portugal briefed athletes and their entourage members during the judo Grand Slam event in Kazan in May.
Also in May, FINA organised a webinar for athletes and their entourage, featuring athlete ambassadors Diego Castillo from Panama and Jian Ying Koh from Singapore. The session was open to anyone, and was followed live by 760 people on the FINA learning platform. In June, similar webinars were organised for coaches and referees from World Taekwondo and National Associations for tennis (in partnership with the International Tennis Integrity Agency).