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Countdown to 2024 Summer Olympics hits 1-year mark

By
Corbin McGuire, NCAA, Press Release

The 2024 Olympic Games are a year away from starting in Paris, where hundreds of current and former athletes from NCAA schools will compete for their countries on the world's biggest stage. Dozens of athletes with NCAA connections will compete in the Paralympic Games soon after.

"For most, their Olympic journey brought them here — to the NCAA — and to the colleges and universities that are the envy of the world," said NCAA President Charlie Baker.

The strength of the Olympic and Paralympic pipeline that the U.S. collegiate sports model offers is far-reaching. Between the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games — held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic — more than 1,000 current and former student-athletes from all three divisions competed for 100-plus countries.

College sports are especially valuable to Team USA. More than 75 percent of the more than 600 athletes on the 2020 Team USA roster competed at an NCAA school. More than 80 percent of Team USA's medalists were current or former student-athletes.

"College sports provide invaluable resources for so many aspiring Olympians and Paralympians," Baker said. "It's where they train, compete and get an education to be the best in the world."

The NCAA's partnership with the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has continued to build on the model's past success, with goals of enhancing awareness of the importance of college sports to Team USA and increasing opportunities in Olympic and Paralympic sports throughout the NCAA.

As part of this partnership, the NCAA and USOPC announced in March 2022 a strengthened sport agreement with three areas of focus:

• Olympic sport management pilots: The agreement included operational deliverables for sport strengthening efforts, including pilot efforts to increase sport efficiencies, test championship-related partnerships and elevate the student-athlete experience. The pilot will engage the gymnastics community, including NCAA committee members, school leaders sponsoring the sport, coaches, athletes and national governing body staff.

• Paralympic project: The agreement led to launching the USOPC/NCAA Para-College Inclusion Project to grow adaptive sport opportunities at the college level in collaboration with the NCAA office of inclusion through shared research, elevated school engagement and joint promotional programming. This project created Paralympic sport advancements in three sports: wheelchair basketball, Paralympic track and field, and wheelchair tennis. As a result, first-of-their-kind programming initiatives were implemented across all three adaptive sports this year at the Women's Final Four, Drake Relays and the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Tennis Championships, respectively.

• Joint promotion: The agreement expanded upon existing promotional efforts to establish a quadrennial plan for communications across both USOPC and NCAA platforms to emphasize and amplify the value of Olympic and Paralympic sport opportunities at the college level. The agreement includes various media milestones and a timeline for formalizing the 2.0 scope for the Olympians and Paralympians Made Here campaign.

"We are truly fortunate to have a thriving collegiate sports infrastructure right here in our own backyard, and we express our sincere appreciation for the ongoing collaboration with the NCAA in advancing Olympic and Paralympic athletic opportunities on campus," said Sarah Hirshland, CEO of the USOPC. "Through this partnership, we are elevating the experience for the countless athletes who are simultaneously competing at the collegiate level and representing Team USA. As we forge ahead, we eagerly anticipate marching together towards the Paris Games, united in our pursuit of greatness."

Founded in 2017, the USOPC Collegiate Advisory Council continues to be a key piece in advocating for strengthening Olympic and Paralympic sport programming at the U.S. collegiate level. This 12-member group comprises eight administrators from colleges that have historically contributed to Team USA's success at the Olympic and Paralympic Games, plus four athletes.

This council created the 34-member USOPC College Sports Sustainability Think Tank, which met in the spring and summer of 2021 to identify innovative solutions to help sustain Olympic and Paralympic varsity programming opportunities within college athletics. The new cooperation agreement's terms are rooted in the USOPC College Sports Sustainability Think Tank recommendations and provide a foundation for the NCAA and USOPC liaison duties outlined in the NCAA constitution.