Plan Ahead

The Fiji Association of Sports and National Olympic Committee (FASANOC) will soon send out for expressions of interests for various programmes leading up to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in France.

FASANOC CEO, Lorraine Mar said this would include Olympic Solidarity (OS) Athlete Scholarships towards Paris 2024, as well as Coaching Scholarships, Medical, Women in Sport, Sport Education and Drug Free Sports.

Several beneficiaries of these scholarships have included Olympians like judoka Tevita Takayawa, swimmer Cheyenne Rova and sailor Sophia Morgan to name a few, who benefitted from this funding for Tokyo 2020.

"Currently reports are being finalized for several programs that were extended for a year given the Tokyo 2020 Games were postponed before we send out an Expression of Interest for funding for the various programs," she said.

"FASANOC's High Performance Commission will also be meeting soon to discuss the pathways for sports and Team Fiji's focus for upcoming Games."

The CEO also took the opportunity to remind National Federations that deadlines are a must and must be adhered to for application submissions and reporting.

"We have had issues with late submission and like in a race - if you are late, the race you will not wait and you will be disqualified!  We must instill this into the administrators, coaches and officials for the flow on effect to athletes," she said.

Lorraine said FASANOC wants to enable high performance through scholarships that will assist with international training and coaching exposure in order to have athletes qualify on merit for upcoming Games.   More than ever, athletes are at the heart of OS’s mission: in a bid to meet their needs even more effectively and to support them throughout their careers, the budget of the programmes is fully dedicated to them.

"FASANOC also encourages coaches to apply for coaching scholarships at internationally acclaimed institutions such as the US Olympic Committee’s International Coaching Enrichment Certificate Program (ICECP) that will update and improve their coaching levels."   Funding will also be targeted at upskilling other members of the athlete entourage including medical personnel and National Federation Executives.

IOC has over the past year had its OS delivery structure enhanced, with the creation of a development area entitled “Athletes and Sport Development”, which includes three programme clusters focused on Olympic Games universality, the entourage and sports development.

We look forward to an exciting 2021 – 2024 Olympiad.

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