
Elizabeth Pike Named Global Winner of the 2024 IOC Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champions Award
International Olympic Committee news
Professor Elizabeth Pike PhD, a leading expert in sport and gender from the University of Hertfordshire (Great Britain), is the Global Winner of the 2024 International Olympic Committee (IOC) Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) Champions Award. On the eve of International Women's Day, the IOC is celebrating Pike, alongside five continental winners who are all breaking barriers in #SportForAllWomenAndGirls.
A Professor in Sport, Health and Exercise, Pike has dedicated her career to creating life-changing opportunities for women in sport and empowering female coaches.
While gender parity was reached for athletes competing at the Olympic Games Paris 2024, only 13 per cent of coaches were women. As the project director of the Women in Sport High-Performance (WISH) programme, a mentorship and training programme for female coaches supported by Olympic Solidarity, Pike has helped tackle this under-representation.
Some 120 female coaches from 22 sports and 59 countries have graduated from the programme, equipped with the tools needed to take on roles at the highest level of their sport. Ten WISH graduates were in coaching roles at Paris 2024.
Elizabeth Pike's dedication to creating opportunities for women in sport, especially through the WISH programme, greatly contributes to strengthening gender equality in sport. Her work has made a significant impact on the lives of many female coaches, and we celebrate her remarkable achievements today.
Thomas BachIOC President
Pike emphasised that her work, part of a larger team effort, is aimed at helping others reach their full potential. 'I feel very honoured the IOC has recognised the part that I have played in helping to unlock the full potential of really talented individuals,' Pike said.
'What we do is try to work with the women to identify what tools, resources and support they need to succeed at the high-performance level – as a coach, but also as a leader,' Pike added.
Pike is also the co-founder of the Anita White Foundation and Fund, which supports female leaders in sport around the world; a co-developer of the Women's Sport Leadership Academy with the Females Achieving Brilliance network; and the research lead for the International Working Group (IWG) on Women and Sport.
The 2024 continental winners alongside Pike are:
Empowering women to coach at elite levels
Pike, who was interested in sport from a young age, was struck by the systemic gender inequality in sports research during her university studies. She embarked on an academic career focusing on the power of sport for social inclusion. Her background has given her excellent insight into the barriers facing women in coaching.
'The WISH programme is very much about not fixing the woman, but fixing the system. So we talk to them about how we can dismantle these obstacles to create this more inclusive and equitable system,' Pike said.
WISH was launched in 2022, following a successful pilot in 2019, to support the Olympic Movement's drive to achieve gender equality at all levels in sport.
The coaches from WISH are not only making changes for themselves and their athletes, but they also inspire other women and girls in sport. They do this by starting to work with the cultures and the systems in their countries and their sports to demonstrate the value and the positive impact of gender equality.
Professor Elizabeth Pike PhDGlobal Winner of the 2024 IOC Gender Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Champions Award
While the WISH programme focuses on elite coaching, female representation at the grassroots level is also crucial.
'For there to be real change for women coaching at all levels, there are multiple stages, and having women coaching at the grassroots level is absolutely key to all of this,' Pike said. 'The first thing we need to do is to raise awareness of the issue – to advocate for and showcase successful women coaches locally and globally. Then, we need to challenge those stereotypes and highlight the importance of gender diversity and sports leadership at all levels, including at grassroots. Then we need to instigate the deliberate practice to address the issue, through sustained investments, National and International Federations having gender-equality action plans, and the importance of male allies.'
The power of grassroots sport
Pike has witnessed the power of grassroots sport in her own work with the Anita White Fund. The Fund supports women leaders globally, promoting social inclusion through projects which focus on grassroots sport for women and girls, many of whom are living with disabilities. The projects foster networking and coalition building, often combining sports development with economic advancement opportunities for women.
Such grassroots projects are vital in giving women and girls the opportunities linked to participating in sport.
'We know that girls who play sports develop confidence, can learn to work in teams, tend to stay in school longer and often get better jobs,' Pike said. 'We also know engagement in sports has significant physical, mental and social benefits for older women, particularly in those activities that emphasise social interaction, and that in itself can challenge gender and age stereotypes to advance gender equality across all ages.'
Celebrating inspiring changemakers
Known as the IOC Women and Sport Awards from 2000 to 2021, the IOC GEDI Champions Awards celebrate the outstanding work of inspiring changemakers who are committed to promoting the advancement of gender equality, diversity and inclusion in and through sport.
Six GEDI Award winners are announced each year – one at world level and one each for Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
The International Olympic Committee is a not-for-profit, civil, non-governmental, international organisation made up of volunteers which is committed to building a better world through sport. It redistributes more than 90 per cent of its income to the wider sporting movement, which means that every day the equivalent of USD 4.2 million goes to help athletes and sports organisations at all levels around the world.
Videos
Photos
Flickr.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Axios
8 hours ago
- Axios
Before the scandal: How SLC secured the 2002 Winter Olympics
Thirty years ago this week, Utah was on pins and needles for a big announcement that finally came June 16: Salt Lake City was named the host of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games. Then it turned out mountains of cash were hiding under the greatest snow on Earth. This is Old News, our weekly attempt to collect the goggles and ski poles lost to the yard sales of time. The week leading up to the hosting announcement was intense. It was SLC's fifth attempt to host the Olympics in 30 years, and polling showed Utahns were not interested in trying again after raising $14 million for the two most recent campaigns. Zoom in: Officials behind Salt Lake's bid were frantically decorating a tiny "hospitality room" at the Budapest hotel where the International Olympic Committee would vote later in the week. While the other finalist cities — representing Canada, Sweden and Switzerland — brought a few posters and brochures, Salt Lake's representatives created a small immersive attraction. They installed floor-to-ceiling paintings of Utah scenery (including Styrofoam snow) and speakers playing cowboy songs and Indigenous flute music. The intrigue: The IOC had told the bidding cities to tone down their hospitality rooms after the elaborate displays four years earlier. Spain flew in flamenco dancers. SLC brought real trees into a luxury suite for scenery. Committee members were lavished with gourmet food and gifts — which the IOC tried to prevent in 1995 with a $200 spending cap. That didn't stop Salt Lake. Friction point: In 1991, the city lost the 1998 games to Nagano, Japan, by just four votes, despite being considered the favorite. Bribery allegations began the day after that decision, with later-substantiated reports that IOC delegates were peppered with millions of dollars' worth of gifts and vacations as part of Japan's pitch. Not to be outdone, SLC's bid committee spent $1 million on behind-the-scenes gifts and favors for IOC members in the leadup to the 1995 vote — decisively eclipsing their try-hard hospitality room in Budapest. Two of Salt Lake's organizers were indicted on federal charges of conspiracy to commit bribery, fraud and racketeering; they were later acquitted. 10 IOC members were removed, and 10 more were sanctioned. The big picture: The revelations in Salt Lake triggered a global scandal and investigations that showed hosting bids for Nagano, Atlanta in 1996, and Sydney in 2000 involved extravagant largesse toward IOC delegates. Reality check: After five bids to host the games, Utahns were hardly clueless as to the blurry lines between bribery and entertainment. In 1995, before the announcement and years before ABC4 exposed the first evidence of payoffs, a columnist for the Ogden Standard-Examiner referred to the IOC as " Incredible Outlays of Cash." The latest: The Olympics reformed the host bidding process before SLC was picked again last year to host in 2034 — but now it's harder to find cities that want the games badly enough to grease the wheels. Previously in Old News
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
L.A. Olympic organizers confident they will cover estimated $7.1 billion cost of Games
Casey Wasserman, LA28 chairman and president, is confident the 2028 Olympics will generate the most revenue ever for a Summer Games. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times) Three years before the Olympics, LA28 organizers gave International Olympic Committee officials the kind of Games preview that even Hollywood's best scriptwriters couldn't plan. To begin a visit to check on LA28's planning progress, the IOC coordination commission attended a game at Dodger Stadium and watched Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off double in the 10th inning to defeat the New York Mets in the same stadium that will host Olympic baseball in three years. Advertisement The electric celebration, passing grades for an advanced venue plan and a growing corporate sponsorship portfolio keeps LA28 on track approaching the three-year mark until the 2028 Olympics open in a dual-venue ceremony at SoFi Stadium and the Coliseum. Read more: Athletes, artists and celebrities create unique logos for the 2028 L.A. Olympics 'We are really confident in the progress we've made,' LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said after the coordination committee's three-day visit. 'We're focused on what we've always done to deliver the greatest Games we are capable of delivering in this city in the most fiscally responsible way that pays dividends for every member of our Olympic movement and our community.' With the city of Los Angeles facing deep financial problems and transportation updates lagging behind schedule, LA28 is under pressure to deliver a completely privately funded Games. The private group says it remains up to the challenge as fundraising for the L.A. Games has been 'going gangbusters,' John Slusher, chief executive of LA28's commercial operation, said in an interview with The Times. Advertisement With six new partnerships this year — matching the total number of deals in all of last year — LA28 has contract revenue worth more than 60% of its total $2.5 billion sponsorship goal. Slusher expects an estimated seven to nine more deals coming this year, and the group is on pace to reach its goal of $2 billion in corporate sponsorship dollars by the end of the year, Slusher and Wassserman said. 'I would tell you where I'm sitting today, we feel very confident we can either meet or exceed that $2.5 billion target,' Slusher said, 'which I think people would have called a stretch target in November.' A major partnership with Honda signaled a boon for business as it was the first founding-level partnership for LA28 since Salesforce signed on in 2021. The cloud-based software company backed out of its deal in 2024. The sudden split raised eyebrows about LA28's fundraising progress, casting doubt whether the committee could fulfill a promise of a privately funded Games that shielded local and state taxpayers from picking up any debt. But organizers remained undeterred. Advertisement Read more: Coliseum, Arena and Long Beach waterfront among 2028 Paralympics venues Such twists have marked LA28's long-planned Olympic journey. The L.A. Games were awarded in 2017 in a rare dual-city announcement that also placed the 2024 Games in Paris. Instead of the typical seven-year lead-up time, LA28 preached patience through an unprecedented 11-year planning period. 'More time is always better than less time,' Wasserman said in an interview with The Times. 'The only negative of selling is there's more distance between deals, so everyone's like, 'You're not doing well.' Which is never how we've been feeling. … My view is judge us when we get to the startline on how we did on sponsorship revenue.' Judgment time is creeping ever closer. The Olympic Games will open on July 14, 2028. Advertisement Although the city has agreed to cover the first $270 million in debt incurred from the Games if LA28 goes overbudget, Wasserman said organizers don't intend to come close to the financial backstop. According to the latest financial report filed to the city in March, LA28 plans to cover the proposed $7.1 billion cost with about one-third of the projected revenue coming from domestic sponsorships and another one-third coming from ticketing and hospitality. 'The caliber of new domestic partnerships this year highlights the power of the Olympic Games to bring people together, create long-term value and reflect growing national engagement with LA28's vision,' said Nicole Hoevertsz, the IOC coordination commission chair. To begin the 2025 sponsorship momentum, LA28 announced an official partnership with AECOM in March as the engineering company will support venue infrastructure for the Games. Advertisement Mortgage company Pennymac, mattress brand Saatva, cloud-based data storage company Snowflake and aviation company Archer signed on as official supporters, one tier below a partnership such as AECOM. While not specifying the financial details, Slusher said he estimated LA28 would make three or four times as much sponsorship revenue this year compared with all of last year. "Our job is to maximize revenue,' Wasserman said. 'I am very confident in our ability to generate, frankly, more revenue that's ever been generated for a Summer Games in the history of the Olympics. I have no doubt about that." While a smaller portion of the budget than sponsorship, merchandise and licensing is gaining momentum as well, Slusher said, as companies clamor for a chance to issue official pins, T-shirts, programs or plush toys. Advertisement LA28's financial report states that it has signed commercial or retail agreements with several companies, including Cisco, Dick's Sporting Goods and Skims. Licensing and merchandising is projected to bring in $344 million, according to LA28's latest annual report. Read more: Visa approval crisis threatens to cost 2026 World Cup and L.A. Olympics millions The next major piece will be ticketing, which, with hospitality, is slated to generate $2.5 billion in revenue, a $569 million increase from a June 2024 estimate. LA28 expects to begin registration for the ticket lottery in early 2026. While LA28 and city officials have hailed the Games as a moment to welcome the world to L.A., concerns about international travel have mounted under the current administration. Delays in visa processing prompted Congressional action ahead of next year's World Cup. President Trump signed a travel ban Wednesday that bars citizens from 12 countries from entering the United States. On Sunday, the Trump administration deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles amid protests over immigration raids. Advertisement The latest Trump order targeting visitors from 12 countries includes exemptions for certain athletes, including those traveling to the United States for major sporting events, and Wasserman was not worried about visa issues affecting the Games. 'It's very clear that the federal government understands that that's an environment that they will be accommodating and provide for,' Wasserman said of the recent travel ban. 'So we have great confidence that that will only continue. It has been the case to date and it will certainly be the case going forward to the Games.' Because Wasserman anticipates the majority of ticket sales to be domestic, he said he is not concerned with a potential drop in revenue if international fans don't attend amid visa or safety concerns. But Paris 2024, which sold a record 12.1 million tickets for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, sold about 38% of its Olympic tickets to fans living outside France, according to the IOC. The successful event exceeded its ticketing and hospitality revenue target by $397 million and brought in a roughly $30-million surplus . Advertisement Read more: LA28 adds Honda as founding level partner, bolstering push for more funding Continuing the Olympic movement's success has been at the top of LA28's mind while bringing the Games back to L.A. for the first time in more than four decades. The 1984 Games were also privately funded and hailed as a massive success for their $225 million surplus that was invested in youth sports. The opportunity to use existing venues in 2028 dramatically reduces potential costs by avoiding new, permanent construction. 'I fully expect that LA28 will be successful in meeting its revenue goals, and I fully expect that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be a financial success," Paul Krekorian, Los Angeles executive director for the office of major events, said in a statement to The Times. "Twice before, Los Angeles has hosted the Olympics, even in the face of adversity, and both of those Games were a huge success for our city and its residents." Still, city leaders face enormous pressure to ensure that streets and sidewalks are safe and accessible for the millions of people expected to visit L.A. during the Games. Mayor Karen Bass recently unveiled a citywide initiative called 'Shine L.A.' that encourages volunteers to beautify the city with clean-ups and tree plantings ahead of next year's World Cup and the Olympics. Advertisement With city and federal funding, L.A. has planned to overhaul its public transportation system, including a long-awaited Metro station that opened Friday at Los Angeles International Airport. But other updates such as an electrified bus network, expanded rail lines and the LAX people mover have lagged. While the city's transportation plan is outside of LA28's Games operation and budget, Wasserman expressed confidence that L.A. will be able to repeat its transit success from the 1984 Games. But the Olympics have grown larger than ever. A record 11,198 Olympians will compete in 2028. The Paralympics will be the city's first. Especially with L.A. still recovering from devastating wildfires and a nearly $1 billion deficit, the threat of taxpayers absorbing any costs for the Games looms large. With financial momentum growing behind the 2028 Games, Wasserman wants to put worried minds at ease. 'The last thing a taxpayer should be worried about is us,' Wasserman said. 'We know how to do this. We are proving that every day and we will prove it all the way throughout the process and we are in every sense of the word, giving to the city, not taking from the city.' Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.


Los Angeles Times
11 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
L.A. Olympic organizers confident they will cover estimated $7.1 billion cost of Games
Three years before the Olympics, LA28 organizers gave International Olympic Committee officials the kind of Games preview that even Hollywood's best scriptwriters couldn't plan. To begin a visit to check on LA28's planning progress, the IOC coordination commission attended a game at Dodger Stadium and watched Freddie Freeman hit a walk-off double in the 10th inning to defeat the New York Mets in the same stadium that will host Olympic baseball in three years. The electric celebration, passing grades for an advanced venue plan and a growing corporate sponsorship portfolio keeps LA28 on track approaching the three-year mark until the 2028 Olympics open in a dual-venue ceremony at SoFi Stadium and the Coliseum. 'We are really confident in the progress we've made,' LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman said after the coordination committee's three-day visit. 'We're focused on what we've always done to deliver the greatest Games we are capable of delivering in this city in the most fiscally responsible way that pays dividends for every member of our Olympic movement and our community.' With the city of Los Angeles facing deep financial problems and transportation updates lagging behind schedule, LA28 is under pressure to deliver a completely privately funded Games. The private group says it remains up to the challenge as fundraising for the L.A. Games has been 'going gangbusters,' John Slusher, chief executive of LA28's commercial operation, said in an interview with The Times. With six new partnerships this year — matching the total number of deals in all of last year — LA28 has contract revenue worth more than 60% of its total $2.5 billion sponsorship goal. Slusher expects an estimated seven to nine more deals coming this year, and the group is on pace to reach its goal of $2 billion in corporate sponsorship dollars by the end of the year, Slusher and Wassserman said. 'I would tell you where I'm sitting today, we feel very confident we can either meet or exceed that $2.5 billion target,' Slusher said, 'which I think people would have called a stretch target in November.' A major partnership with Honda signaled a boon for business as it was the first founding-level partnership for LA28 since Salesforce signed on in 2021. The cloud-based software company backed out of its deal in 2024. The sudden split raised eyebrows about LA28's fundraising progress, casting doubt whether the committee could fulfill a promise of a privately funded Games that shielded local and state taxpayers from picking up any debt. But organizers remained undeterred. Such twists have marked LA28's long-planned Olympic journey. The L.A. Games were awarded in 2017 in a rare dual-city announcement that also placed the 2024 Games in Paris. Instead of the typical seven-year lead-up time, LA28 preached patience through an unprecedented 11-year planning period. 'More time is always better than less time,' Wasserman said in an interview with The Times. 'The only negative of selling is there's more distance between deals, so everyone's like, 'You're not doing well.' Which is never how we've been feeling. … My view is judge us when we get to the startline on how we did on sponsorship revenue.' Judgment time is creeping ever closer. The Olympic Games will open on July 14, 2028. Although the city has agreed to cover the first $270 million in debt incurred from the Games if LA28 goes overbudget, Wasserman said organizers don't intend to come close to the financial backstop. According to the latest financial report filed to the city in March, LA28 plans to cover the proposed $7.1 billion cost with about one-third of the projected revenue coming from domestic sponsorships and another one-third coming from ticketing and hospitality. 'The caliber of new domestic partnerships this year highlights the power of the Olympic Games to bring people together, create long-term value and reflect growing national engagement with LA28's vision,' said Nicole Hoevertsz, the IOC coordination commission chair. To begin the 2025 sponsorship momentum, LA28 announced an official partnership with AECOM in March as the engineering company will support venue infrastructure for the Games. Mortgage company Pennymac, mattress brand Saatva, cloud-based data storage company Snowflake and aviation company Archer signed on as official supporters, one tier below a partnership such as AECOM. While not specifying the financial details, Slusher said he estimated LA28 would make three or four times as much sponsorship revenue this year compared with all of last year. 'Our job is to maximize revenue,' Wasserman said. 'I am very confident in our ability to generate, frankly, more revenue that's ever been generated for a Summer Games in the history of the Olympics. I have no doubt about that.' While a smaller portion of the budget than sponsorship, merchandise and licensing is gaining momentum as well, Slusher said, as companies clamor for a chance to issue official pins, T-shirts, programs or plush toys. LA28's financial report states that it has signed commercial or retail agreements with several companies, including Cisco, Dick's Sporting Goods and Skims. Licensing and merchandising is projected to bring in $344 million, according to LA28's latest annual report. The next major piece will be ticketing, which, with hospitality, is slated to generate $2.5 billion in revenue, a $569 million increase from a June 2024 estimate. LA28 expects to begin registration for the ticket lottery in early 2026. While LA28 and city officials have hailed the Games as a moment to welcome the world to L.A., concerns about international travel have mounted under the current administration. Delays in visa processing prompted Congressional action ahead of next year's World Cup. President Trump signed a travel ban Wednesday that bars citizens from 12 countries from entering the United States. On Sunday, the Trump administration deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles amid protests over immigration raids. The latest Trump order targeting visitors from 12 countries includes exemptions for certain athletes, including those traveling to the United States for major sporting events, and Wasserman was not worried about visa issues affecting the Games. 'It's very clear that the federal government understands that that's an environment that they will be accommodating and provide for,' Wasserman said of the recent travel ban. 'So we have great confidence that that will only continue. It has been the case to date and it will certainly be the case going forward to the Games.' Because Wasserman anticipates the majority of ticket sales to be domestic, he said he is not concerned with a potential drop in revenue if international fans don't attend amid visa or safety concerns. But Paris 2024, which sold a record 12.1 million tickets for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, sold about 38% of its Olympic tickets to fans living outside France, according to the IOC. The successful event exceeded its ticketing and hospitality revenue target by $397 million and brought in a roughly $30-million surplus. Continuing the Olympic movement's success has been at the top of LA28's mind while bringing the Games back to L.A. for the first time in more than four decades. The 1984 Games were also privately funded and hailed as a massive success for their $225 million surplus that was invested in youth sports. The opportunity to use existing venues in 2028 dramatically reduces potential costs by avoiding new, permanent construction. 'I fully expect that LA28 will be successful in meeting its revenue goals, and I fully expect that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be a financial success,' Paul Krekorian, Los Angeles executive director for the office of major events, said in a statement to The Times. 'Twice before, Los Angeles has hosted the Olympics, even in the face of adversity, and both of those Games were a huge success for our city and its residents.' Still, city leaders face enormous pressure to ensure that streets and sidewalks are safe and accessible for the millions of people expected to visit L.A. during the Games. Mayor Karen Bass recently unveiled a citywide initiative called 'Shine L.A.' that encourages volunteers to beautify the city with clean-ups and tree plantings ahead of next year's World Cup and the Olympics. With city and federal funding, L.A. has planned to overhaul its public transportation system, including a long-awaited Metro station that opened Friday at Los Angeles International Airport. But other updates such as an electrified bus network, expanded rail lines and the LAX people mover have lagged. While the city's transportation plan is outside of LA28's Games operation and budget, Wasserman expressed confidence that L.A. will be able to repeat its transit success from the 1984 Games. But the Olympics have grown larger than ever. A record 11,198 Olympians will compete in 2028. The Paralympics will be the city's first. Especially with L.A. still recovering from devastating wildfires and a nearly $1 billion deficit, the threat of taxpayers absorbing any costs for the Games looms large. With financial momentum growing behind the 2028 Games, Wasserman wants to put worried minds at ease. 'The last thing a taxpayer should be worried about is us,' Wasserman said. 'We know how to do this. We are proving that every day and we will prove it all the way throughout the process and we are in every sense of the word, giving to the city, not taking from the city.'