Endorsing the strategic direction of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) towards 2032, the 146th IOC Session in Lausanne, Switzerland, today made the IOC and the Olympic Movement “Fit for the Future”. With their support for the strategy proposed by IOC President Kirsty Coventry, the IOC Members laid the foundation that will allow the IOC and the Olympic Movement to remain strong, relevant and impactful in the years to come.

“Our responsibility is to build on the strong foundations that have been laid by those who came before us. Our responsibility is to prepare for generations that will follow us. Fit for the Future is designed to build on those strengths. It was designed as a genuine opportunity to listen, to reflect and to shape the future of our Movement together.,” President Coventry said.

“Fit for the Future” was presented to the IOC Session under five themes – Athletes, Olympic Games, Olympic Movement, Olympic Impact, and Engagement and Revenue – each of them including a goal, an ambition, objectives for 2032, and commitments.

The strategic direction is the result of an extensive consultation process with the entire Olympic Movement under the headline of “Pause and Reflect”. IOC Members, IOC Honorary Members, over 2,200 athletes and athlete representatives, IOC Commissions, International Federations, National Olympic Committees, Organising Committees for the Olympic Games, more than 100 Olympic Hosts and Legacy entities, the Worldwide Olympic Partners, Media Rights-Holders, media representatives and the IOC staff engaged in the discussion, with three key objectives:

• to identify key opportunities and challenges across the Olympic Movement;
• to ensure that the strategic direction is shaped collectively by the IOC Members and the Olympic Movement; and
• to analyse global, sports and corporate trends impacting the Olympic Movement.

Nine working groups were set up to take the consultations further and develop the goals, the ambitions, the objectives for 2032, and the commitments under the five themes of the “Fit for the Future” process. In line with the principle of “athletes first”, the IOC Athletes’ Commission was involved in all the working groups. In addition, the Future Host Commission for the Games of the Olympiad led the reform of the future host selection process.

The 146^th IOC Session is a critical milestone on the transformation journey that the IOC and the Olympic Movement have embarked on. While “Fit for the Future” remains an ongoing process, the first concrete deliverables on the commitments under the five themes were presented to the IOC Session.

It was announced that, for the first time in Olympic history, every athlete at the Olympic Games will be eligible for a new USD 10,000 “Fit for the Future Olympian Grant”. The grant has been set up to support the sporting career or the career transition of Olympians. A fund of USD 140 million per Olympiad has been set aside. The first athletes to benefit from this initiative will be the Olympians who competed at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games.

The IOC Members approved a series of amendments to the Olympic Charter intended to strengthen the principle of neutrality within the Olympic Movement and to modernise the governance of the Olympic Games programme. In addition, they approved a new methodology to define the Olympic programme going forward, centred on the introduction of a discipline-based evaluation.

The Session also endorsed a detailed set of reforms of the Olympic Games host selection process by introducing a new transitional stage of “Strategic Dialogue” and by defining the timeline to elect the Olympic host for 2036 in mid-2029. The changes build on the dialogue approach, which was successfully introduced in 2019, and which emphasises benefits for host communities and sustainable projects.

In addition, a first decision under the “Fit for the Future” process was the IOC’s announcement in March of its new Policy on the Protection of the Female (Women’s) Category in Olympic Sport.

The five themes of “Fit for the Future”, with their goals, ambitions, objectives for 2032 and commitments,  are here