The International Olympic Committee (IOC) continues its strong efforts to support Ukrainian athletes. The $7.5 million Solidarity Fund will help them prepare for the Paris 2024 Olympics and the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. So far, some 3,000 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have benefited from this support and direct assistance from National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and International Sports Federations (IFs), allowing them to continue training and participate in major events such as the World Athletics Championships, the World Games and the European Youth Olympic Festival this summer.
Inspiring triumphs of Ukrainian athletes
The Olympic movement’s unprecedented solidarity with the Ukrainian Olympic community has helped Ukrainian athletes achieve remarkable success on the world stage in recent months. The Ukrainian women’s freestyle wrestling team was able to win its first world title in the U.S. in December 2022, thanks to the support of United World Wrestling (UWW), Olympic Solidarity, the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee (NOC) and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), which provided technical assistance to the Ukrainian wrestling federation so that its women’s team could compete in major UWW events.
In collaboration with the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) and its Foundation, the IOC Solidarity Fund was able to support the Ukrainian team’s participation in the ITTF Paralympic World Championships, which took place in Spain in November 2022. This support enabled two female players and five male players to participate in the event, where Lev Kats and Ivan Mai won gold in the Class 18 men’s doubles.
Extensive support in the run-up to the Games
The IOC Solidarity Fund for the Ukrainian Olympic community continues to provide a wide range of support and assistance to athletes as they prepare for Paris 2024 and Milan Cortina 2026.
The Solidarity Fund highlights ongoing collaboration within the Olympic movement to support Ukrainian athletes and helped fund a joint initiative between World Aquatics and the Turkish National Olympic Committee (NOC) that saw 17 artistic swimmers and eight officials from Ukraine participate in a month-long training camp in Antalya, Turkey, in October 2022. Support for similar training camps, including covering travel, food and accommodation costs, has been provided to Ukrainian athletes in sports such as archery, athletics, biathlon, curling, gymnastics, handball, karate, rowing and swimming, illustrating the wide-ranging support that is being provided.
National federations and Ukrainian athletes have regularly expressed their gratitude for the support provided by the IOC and the Olympic movement. Ukrainian swimmer Mykhailo Romanchuk posted on his Instagram page back in September, “One of the hardest months of my career is behind me. And I would like to thank the IOC and the Ukrainian NOC for their support and the opportunity to continue training and defend my country in the international arena.”
Solidarity Fund Task Force
In total, more than 115 applications have been supported so far by the IOC’s Solidarity Fund for the Ukrainian Olympic community, which was established in February 2022 in coordination with Olympic Solidarity, the European Olympic Committees (EOC) and a task force led by IOC member and former Ukrainian NOC president Sergii Bubka. The main objective was to meet the urgent humanitarian needs of the country’s elite and top athletes while helping them to continue competing on the international stage by covering the costs of competitions, training camps, travel and accommodation.
The IOC initially donated $1 million when the fund was established, and the EOC contributed another $500,000. Following president Thomas Bach’s visit to Kyiv in July 2022, the IOC added another $5 million to the fund to support athletes for the Paris 2024 Olympics and the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics and their respective qualifying competitions. Following an appeal by Bach to the entire Olympic movement, additional donations totaling more than $1 million were received from IOC members, NOCs, international sports federations and global Olympic partners.
