NOC Engagement group: looking after the details makes the difference

At the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, the Alpine and sliding events were held 74 kilometres northwest of Beijing in the Yanqing competition zone.

Given that distance, along with the variability of winter weather and night traffic to and from the capital, the original plan had called for a medals plaza in Yanqing. However, in July 2019, a switch was made, and athletes who medalled were to go to Beijing for their medal ceremonies.

This decision raised concerns amongst  a number of NOCs. By the spring of 2021, these concerns had intensified, particularly for those nations with athletes competing in multiple events, prompting officials to propose practical solutions to the Beijing 2022 organisers. Austria’s Christoph Sieber played a leading role, and suggested re-establishing the Yanqing medals plaza or conducting the ceremonies in-venue.

Beijing 2022 agreed to in-venue ceremonies.

Thus putting a spotlight on the impact of what is known as the NOC Engagement Group, and the healthy camaraderie that goes along with it: “I will have Mozart chocolate rounds for you forever,” Sieber said in a group email exchange, recalling how the Yanqing medals issue was solved.

The idea for the NOC Engagement Group emerged during the Rio 2016 Games when it became evident that real-world experiences and lessons learnt from past Games could significantly benefit Games organisers. The objective being to improve the flow of NOC priorities and concerns into the planning of the Olympic Games and optimise exchanges between the OCOGs and the NOCs. To achieve this, a collective group of experts from various NOCs would be brought together to recommend practical solutions and insights on matters that arise. After all, NOCs are the entities that bring the athletes to the Games.

A first informal group of NOCs was brought to the IOC Coordination Commission ahead of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. Since then, it has evolved into a fully-fledged working group for each edition of the Games. The NOC Engagement Groups typically include around 6-10 NOCs from different parts of the world and of varying sizes, in order to get inputs that are as representative as possible of the challenges and priorities of the NOCs in the lead-up to the Games. . When selecting the members of the NOC Engagement Groups, the IOC Athletes Games Services team also takes gender balance into consideration.

Damir Štajner, Executive Director of the Serbian Olympic Committee and a member of the Paris 2024 group, said of their input: “Sometimes it is accepted as a final solution, and other times as a guideline for reaching a final solution.”

As Jake Wilkins, team services director of the New Zealand Olympic Committee, stressed, “You spend a lot of time working with organising committees and all their different functional areas. The people in them are well-meaning and excited about what they are doing, but they don’t always have Games experience. They are going off a manual with limited context.”

For instance, from Tokyo 2020:

“I remember small conversations about things like bed-making – like, should an athlete be able to make their own bed,” as opposed to having cleaning staff in the Olympic Village make it. This, in Japan, where tidy is a way of life; soccer fans clean up stadiums after World Cup games.

“We don't need full hotel service,” Wilkins said he recalls saying. “Why are we making beds? We need to make sure the rooms are hygienic. But athletes and staff want the cleaning staff to be in their rooms as short a time as possible.”

Luke Pellegrini, the Australian Olympic Committee’s chief of Sports and teams, recalled the athlete gym at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Games was no bigger than something you might find at a hotel. Surely things could – should – be better. “As we say in Australia all the time, the athletes have to have their best day on the right day”, he said.

For Paris 2024, Marie-Andrée Lessard, a 2012 Olympian in beach volleyball and now Games senior director for the Canadian Olympic Committee, said that a set of stairs would cut down maybe 300 metres on every athlete’s dining hall trip: “…the Organising Committee has told us they had agreed to build the additional access point.” “It’s that stuff,” Pellegrini said. “Like, build stairs,” which is being done. “Every step counts.”

Lessard added that it’s great to compare what each NOC deems important: “As with all consulting initiatives, it makes the whole greater than its individual parts.”

The Yanqing medals plaza example showcases the positive impact of the NOC Engagement Group, where practical solutions drawn from real-world experiences contribute to optimising the Olympic Games' preparation and organisation.