International Olympic Committee (IOC) members applauded the efforts of the organisation in achieving the goals of the Olympic Agenda 2020, which was unanimously approved in the movement’s review of the closing report.

Six years after it was adopted at the 127th IOC Session in December 2014, the organisation released a video which details the individual aspects of the Agenda and how they have been met over the course of the last few years.

It was announced yesterday that IOC President, Thomas Bach, had been re-elected to serve a second four-year term after running unopposed for the post.

The German triumphed in a 93 to one vote with four abstentions, as confirmed at the 137th IOC Session, which was staged virtually due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Consequently, the 2020 strategic roadmap, which was laid out by Bach in his first term of office, has been highly successful, the review found.

Through the 2020 Agenda, the IOC established a ‘Protection of clean athletes’ fund which was designated $20 million in funding. Half of the sum was put towards education programmes to raise awareness of match-fixing, manipulation of competitions and related corruption.

The remaining half supported the development of new scientific approaches to anti-doping, resulting in the creation of 16 anti-doping research projects since 2014, 12 of which have been successfully completed.

Furthermore, the IOC has collaborated with the International Partnership Against Corruption in Sport (IPACS) to create the first tool to prevent corruption in sport. 

Meanwhile, a memorandum of understanding signed with INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has seen the IOC produce new guidelines to mitigate the possibility of corruption. The report disclosed that 100% of Olympic sports international federations are now compliant with the Olympic Movement Code on the Prevention of the Manipulation of Competitions.

The formation of the Olympic Channel resulted in increased engagement with a younger demographic, with 75% of the platform’s social media engagement targeting under 35 year-olds.

In addition, since its launch, the Olympic Channel has received approximately 3.4 billion views across all platforms, amassing 10.4 million social media followers, and created 25,000 pieces of ‘athlete-centric’ in 12 different languages and 75 original series and films.

Summarising the result of the closing report, Bach explained: “Today, we look back at what we have achieved together. Over the course of the past years, all Olympic Movement stakeholders have contributed to make Olympic Agenda 2020 come to life.”