Further refining the Olympic Movement

When the Olympic Agenda 2020 was released in December 2014, it was to present a path for the Olympic Movement, with the objective to achieve 40 detailed recommendations by the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

The guidelines for Olympic sports federations required World Sailing to make difficult decisions. With the International Olympic Committee seeking gender equality, mixed events, and event uniqueness, the sailing program from the Rio 2016 would need to be changed.

When World Sailing resisted, choosing instead to protect the investment of athletes and member nations for Tokyo 2020, the IOC was not impressed and reduced the number of athletes permitted to participate. What followed was a painstaking review for Paris 2024, with significant change initiated to better position Sailing within the IOC’s vision.

The result was increased opportunity for women and to highlight and promote the sport’s diversity in equipment and format. A significant example among the ten events is the new Mixed Two Person Keelboat Offshore event.

To continue pushing forward, the IOC has proposed a new strategic roadmap, Olympic Agenda 2020+5. The new roadmap, which consists of 15 recommendations, follows Olympic Agenda 2020 and will guide the work of the IOC and the Olympic Movement for the next five years.

Olympic Agenda 2020+5 will be submitted to the IOC Members for discussion and adoption at the 137th IOC Session in March 2021. The key trends include:

• The need for greater solidarity within and among societies;

• The growth in digitalization, while keeping in mind the need to expand digital capability to the currently digitally underserved;

• The urgency of achieving sustainable development;

• The growing demand for credibility, both of organizations and institutions; and

• The need to build resilience in the face of the financial and economic consequences that will result from the COVID-19 pandemic and which will influence priority-setting among governments and enterprises.

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