Olympic Solidarity helps “level the field” at Paris 2024, as scholarship-holders celebrate historic success
Thanks to support from Olympic Solidarity, many athletes have reached the podium and won historic medals for their National Olympic Committees (NOCs) at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. In individual sports, a total of 75 medals (26 gold, 20 silver and 29 bronze) have been won by the 604 scholarship-holders from 171 NOCs, in 24 sports, who competed at Paris 2024.
When Olympic scholarship-holder Letsile Tebogo blitzed his way across the finish line in the men’s 200m at the Stade de France on Thursday evening, he won more than just an Olympic medal. His victory gave Botswana its first ever gold at the Olympic Games, while the 21-year-old also became the first African to win the event on the Olympic stage.
“It means a lot to the African continent because now they see Africa as a sprinting home,” he said afterwards. “We just had to make sure that the message is loud and clear.”
And that’s not the only message that is being heard loud and clear at Paris 2024.
Throughout the Games, athletes have been winning landmark medals for countries that have rarely – or sometimes even never – seen success at Olympic level.
“We are making history”
Less than 20 minutes after Tebogo won gold in the 200m, another scholarship-holder, Arshad Nadeem, was making history of his own in the Stade de France. Launching his javelin to an Olympic record-breaking distance of 92.97m, the 27-year-old secured Pakistan its first-ever individual Olympic gold medal and its first Olympic medal of any colour since 1992.
"I came from a farming village, and every time I win a medal I think about my origins – and that motivates me to do better,” reflected Nadeem afterwards. “That's the reason I have remained humble, and that's why I want to become more successful. I had to go through very tough times to make it to this stage.”
Thea LaFond also leapt to gold in the women’s triple jump, becoming the first-ever Olympic medallist for Dominica, while David De Pina’s bronze in the men’s 51kg boxing was the first Olympic medal won by an athlete from Cabo Verde.
We are Olympic medallists from humble beginnings. My country is 70,000 people. Logically, this is not even supposed to happen, but here we are, we are breaking barriers and setting records, making history.
"We are making history for our islands, and that is what we set out to do every time we step out on the track.
“Sometimes you wonder if being from a small country means you have less access to resources, but we’ve been really big on just having quality over quantity. I hope my country is just proud. I think it’s a big deal for them,” LaFond added.
There were many other firsts for Olympic scholarship-holders in Paris:
- Barbara Matić from Croatia won the women’s 70kg judo event and gave her country its first-ever Olympic medal in this sport.
- Francisca Crovetto Chadid’s gold medal is the first ever in shooting for Chile.
- Veddriq Leonardo’s victory in the men’s speed climbing event was the first Olympic gold medal by an Indonesian athlete in a sport other than badminton.
- Alexandra Ndolo was the first ever athlete to represent Kenya in fencing, competing in the women's individual épée event.
- Boxer Cindy Ngamba won the first-ever Olympic medal for the IOC Refugee Olympic Team.
“It has helped me towards achieving my goals”
All these athletes have benefitted from the support of an Olympic Solidarity scholarship to help fund their success at the Games and journeys to the Olympic podium.
Olympic Solidarity aims to provide assistance to all NOCs for athlete development programmes, in particular those with the greatest need for it. This includes direct support for athletes through Olympic scholarships, which contribute essential funding to put towards equipment, training costs and travel to international competitions so that athletes can not only qualify for the Games, but also compete with pride and achieve impressive results.
Nadeem, who was among the 10 scholarship-holders who shared their journeys to Paris 2024 ahead of the Games, revealed the impact the funding had had on his training and development.
The support through the scholarship has been a great help with a lot of things that were needed – a lot of things that were rudimentary to javelin throwing and athletics. It has helped me towards achieving my goals.
“Levelling the playing field”
A total of 1,560 athletes from 195 NOCs and 215 teams from 140 NOCs received scholarships for their training in the lead-up to the Games. IOC President Thomas Bach noted how the work of Olympic Solidarity was helping to “level the playing field” at the Games, supporting the IOC’s decision to increase the overall Olympic Solidarity budget for 2025 to 2028 by 10 per cent, reaching an unprecedented total of USD 650 million, with funding for direct athlete support programmes growing by 16 per cent.
This is proof that all the efforts we undertake with Olympic Solidarity, along with the development programmes of many International Federations, are clearly levelling the playing field,. This is a strong encouragement for us that we are on the right track to have increased this Olympic Solidarity budget for the next Olympiad to USD 650 million.
The IOC hopes that the increased budget will allow more NOCs with traditionally smaller Olympic teams and their athletes from all backgrounds to benefit from individual Olympic scholarships and team support grants, helping them in their quest to reach the Olympic stage and increasing the universality of the Games even further.
That is a view shared by history-maker Nadeem, who hopes more athletes will be able to benefit from Olympic scholarships in the same way he has.
“I hope the scholarship will continue for the future and the next generation of Olympic athletes,” he said.
Thanks to the continued investment by the IOC, that hope will be realised, with athletes set to receive even greater support as they strive to emulate the achievements of Nadeem, Tebogo, LaFond, De Pina, Ngamba and the 600 other Olympic scholarship-holders who competed in Paris.