An overview of athletes' active afterlife and career development

An inner look at how the IOC strategizes the Athletes Commission in a nutshell by Emma Terho OLY, head of the Athletes Commission, explains – “The IOC AC Strategy drives the work of the IOC AC. This version is an update to our original strategy, published in 2017. It builds on an in-depth consultation with Athletes’ Commissions, athletes and Olympic Movement stakeholders in 2021 and 2022. 

 

“This IOC AC Strategy delivers on Olympic Agenda 2020+5, the IOC’s roadmap to 2025. The Olympic Agenda 2020+5 recommendations focus on areas where sport and the values of Olympism can help turn the challenges of the post-pandemic world into opportunities. This strategy also sets out how the IOC AC will help to implement these recommendations and support athletes. We focus on Recommendations 3, 4 and 5 in particular to prioritise activities.”  

 

The Athletes Commission further explains as to how it represents athletes in the Olympic Movement? How they ensure athletes’ voices are part of the decision-making process in a number of ways: 

1. Engage with the athlete/Olympian community to better understand their needs. 

2. Represent athletes across all levels of decision-making within the IOC. 

3. Advocate actively for athletes on topics of importance to them in various IOC commissions – including the Olympic Solidarity, Sustainability & Legacy, and Gender Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Commissions. 

4. Keep the athlete experience at the heart of the Olympic Games – through involvement in the Olympic Programme and Coordination Commissions 

5. Continuously build the capacity of the IOC AC. 

6. Uphold athletes' rights and responsibilities by supporting the Athletes’ Declaration Steering Committee and their work. 

 

To have a closer understanding of the Sri Lankan leg of the athletes’ commission looks at the commissioning of the AC, GoodSport had an exchanges of views with one of its senior elites, Oly Niluka Karunaratne.  

 

The question was – The Athletes’ Commission of Sri Lanka has been given the challenge of guiding the Lankan athletic Community and how are you hoping to translate that action into an on ground situation?  

 

The former champion Badminton ace explained in this manner “The Athletes Commission is formed under the guidelines of the International Olympic Committee regulations in under the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka. This includes all athletes who come under the banner of our organisations.  

Our responsibility is listen to athletes, make their voices heard within the decision making forum and to serve them in terms technical, administratively and problem solving strategies. Also we have a responsibility of linking athletes from the grassroots level and take into the sphere of the NOC SL purview.  

 

“Besides we also make athletes take note of their rights and responsibilities and how they conduct themselves in training, in competition with their wellbeing in mind.  

 

“Practically we have had a couple workshops carried out during the past few years on awareness, competition manipulation, safe sport policy, spoken English, anti-doping and the recently concluded Athletes Career programme with Athlete 365. This was aimed at athletes who have engaged in athletes at local and international levels and who are at the tail end of their careers. It was an insight on how to move forward in a profession in their post active athletics life.  

 

GoodSport queried about athletes who have played the game at the highest level and how they could transform their careers in a hands-on level.  

 

Karunaratne explained, “Basically, we represent the professional elite athletes, who are connected to the national federations. Out information is firstly transfer the information to the NOC SL. We do not directly engage with them. But, we have a forum for the athletes to come forward and engage with us so that we could make their situations and problems heard at the highest level. To do that we have a website – social media platform where they could engage us with their issues. It may be games or competitions or local competitions. Our responsibility is to carry that message to the respective authorities for action or solutions. In short it is the athletes’ voice and we want them to be heard within the decision making platform. 

 

At that point we pointed out about the two-day forum that you held with the help of the Athlete 365 expertise?       

 

Niluka Karunaratne explained, “We have many Education and Career Transitional Programmes conducted by us. They are conducted by the International Olympic Committee, Athletes Commission, and Athlete 365 platform.  

 

“In fact, what we conducted was a career development programme for the elite athletes – for them to have a professional and very specific path to know as to how I could develop myself after finishing my ‘on field’ stint. How could develop myself to be a more confident and more professional character in my afterlife as an active athlete.  

 

“It was called the Athletes365 + career programme and it was conducted by an IOC Education expert from Singapore Yip Renkai. There were more than twenty athletes who took part in this programme. I remember being a part of a similar programme as a youngster in 2015. However, the concept was changed thereafter and now it is conducted under the present banner.  

 

“As explained this is a programme to be more professional and your afterlife as an athlete. It’s about how you set yourself about engaging yourself in employment – approaching the corporate world doing your own business as an entrepreneur -- in short how you build yourself professionally. It is discovering yourself since you step out of the active stint.   

 

“The athletes took the challenge in its correct spirit. All athletes who took part went through the entirety of the programme. There was team activity, on how to present a CV in its true as an athlete – in short it was a programme to guide yourself as a professional and develop your second phase.”