TIAS REPORTWORLD OLYMPIANS FORUM IIOlympians for Life
Mariko Sakai (TIAS Researcher)
April 2019

Overview of the World Olympians Forum II
The World Olympians Forum II took place in Lausanne, Switzerland from 15th to 17th April 2019(https://olympians.org/news/1233/woa-launches-world-olympians-forum-ii/). The forum brought
together 170 Olympians from 110 National Olympians Association (hereafter, NOAs) and was conductedunder the theme “Olympians for Life”. Strengthening the capabilities of NOAs and highlighting their vitalrole as ambassadors of the Olympic ideals was the main focus of this forum. At all workshops, sessions
and the Grants Challenge, Olympians presentations were aimed to upskill and provide the tools necessary
for NOAs to become as effective as possible ambassadors of the Olympic Movement.

Day 1: Joint Session with the 9th International Athletes’ ForumThe forum started with a joint session with the Athletes’ forum which was run from 13 th to 15th by
IOC Athletes Commission (hereafter, ACs) at the Swiss Tech Convention Centre. There were over 450
athletes and Olympians representatives from across the world in the joint session. This session featuredworkshops, networking and team building opportunities focusing on strengthening continental/localcommunication. The forum opened with remarks by the president of IOC, Thomas Bach and he expressedto the participants that we all should take advantage of this opportunity to encourage cooperation between
ACs and NOAs for further development. The participants were divided into own continent and had adiscussion regarding ACs and NOAs priorities and how we can collaborate to support athletes (includingretired athletes). The result of the discussion in Asia, ACs and NOAs revealed that we share common
priorities such as Education, Health Support, and Career for both the active and retired athletes. It
remained, however, controversial in regards to the way of separating the tasks by ACs and NOAs on thesepriorities. In addition, we found out that Asian counties encounter the language barrier in terms of theEducational tools provided by the IOC, and we concluded that this aspect should be addressed by the IOC.

In the afternoon session, there were workshops “Influence like a Pro” by Gabriela Mueller
Mendoza. It started with increasing awareness of individual personality and she also told us the keys / keypoints to increase our influence to others.

1TIAS REPORTDay 2: Opening of the World Olympians ForumDay 2 was held at the Swiss Tech Convention Centre and there were 150 Olympians and 107
NOAs. The opening remarks were delivered by the president of World Olympians Association (hereafter,WOA), Joel Bouzou, OLY and WOA patron, HSJ Prince Albert II of Monaco. Post-opening session, theWOA Secretary General, Tony Ledgard, OLY and WOA CEO Mike Miller presented about “WHO &WHAT is WOA” and talked about the status quo, our missions, strategies, and their actions towards
Olympians and NOAs. The forum’s main focus is one of the strategy “Increase and strengthen the NOAs”.
The participants were divided into three groups for the “NOAs from Good to Great Workshop”. The
workshop goal was to strengthen NOAs through practical activities such as effective promotion tips andbasic managing skills. There were three activities as follows:
1. Project Delivery to Society by NOAs
2. The Event Preparation Checklist
3. Member Engagement
The participants carried out the discussion in each specific table within the group and cooperated
to complete the assignment within the activities. Our group consisted of Americans, Europeans, Africans,and Asians. We had respect for each other’s’ ideas and different backgrounds, while we formed theopinion/answers in each activity.

NOA Case Study Presentations were conducted in the afternoon. The presenters were from GreatBritain, Chinese Taipei, Singapore, and Canada. They presented the NOAs activities to engage Olympians
each other and society, and how they have got/managed the fund for the activities. Sharing the successcases and also difficulties that they faced were very informative and participants could obtain practicalideas. One of the implementation that Canada introduced was to celebrate Olympians with letters and asmall gift. It was something that is relatively easy to do, and helps to remain connected to the Olympiansand NOAs.

Day 3: WOA Grants Challenge, NOA Think-tank, and Closing Session
Day 3 started with the WOA Grants Challenge (conducted since 2016 to help support funds toNOAs; over 120 grants so far). Grants categories are 1. NOAs Development Grants, 2. Service toOlympians, and 3. Service to Society. Five finalists from Colombia, Nigeria, Philippine, Malaysia, andLithuania conducted five minutes’ presentation and Q&A from panelists. Colombia and Lithuania eachwon 5,000 US dollars for their NOA project procedures. Details of winning projects are below.


Mentoring through the Olympic Eye
An Olympian-led mentoring program that will support the empowerment of women in sport and intheir communities.
Olympian Life Mentoring
To promote, activate and diversity the life of the elderly, orphans and the disabled through sports
and physical activity.

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TIAS REPORTAt the NOA think-tank workshop, the participants were divided into each own continent and havea discussion in regards to the designated questions. The goals of these workshops were to identify
opportunities for NOA and WOA development and to build relationships with the continental counterparts.
We as an Asia continent had a discussion on the reasons why someone should invest in our NOA program,the answers we came up were: In order to make the program happen successfully, to deliver the program toa wide range of people in the country, and to leverage the Olympians to the community as the Olympicambassador. The forum closed with the presentation by the ACs regarding details of AC activities and theClosing remarks by the president of WOA, Joel Bouzou.

Conclusion and Take-home Message
WOA CEO, Mike Miller said at the beginning of the forum that WOA and this forum is here toprovide information that can be simply applied at the home country and help NOAs further development.
As he stated, the last two days of the forum were very informative for further development of NOAs andinvolved many activities to use the knowledge into a more practical way. Japanese NOA is considered as
one of the good examples among Asia, however, in order to increase in prevalence Japanese NOA and tosupport Olympians and athletes at all the age stage, it is very important to take action of what I learned inthis forum. I am grateful to TIAS for the financial support for attending the forum, and also what I
experienced in TIAS Master’s program (courses, e.g., cross-cultural communication) that I could apply inthis international forum.

Links:
https://www.olympic.org/news/biggest-ever-international-athletes-forum-ends-with-concrete-proposals-to-furtherincrease-the-support-to-athletes-at-all-levels ; https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1078090/woa-hails-successful-world-olympiansforum-in-lausanne3