One month to go to #OlympicDay

23 | 5 | 2018

Olympians from around the world are gearing up to take part in sporting, cultural and educational activities to mark the global celebration of Olympic Day on 23 June 2018.

On Olympic Day, the Olympic Movement  works together to promote active and healthy lifestyles based on the three pillars of move, learn and discover to commemorate the birth of the modern Olympic Games (23 June 1894).

Olympians are encouraged to get in touch with their National Olympians Associations via WOA’s NOA Directory to see how they can help spread the spirit of Olympism on Olympic Day. You can also find lots of hints and tips on the IOC’s Olympic Day toolkit, downloadable HERE.

NOA’s are playing an increasingly important role in promoting Olympic Day by activating alongside National Olympic Committees and engaging Olympians in activities.

Last year, Mongolia’s NOA worked with the NOC and national sports federations to host a celebration involving more than 150,000 children.

National sporting heroes, such as Olympic silver medallists Tsend Damdin (Judo - Moscow 1980) and Jigjid Munkhbat (Wrestling - Mexico City 1968) – the first Mongolian to win an Olympic medal - were on hand to support the event, which saw a range of sporting demonstrations and workshops take place in table tennis, badminton, football, volleyball, baseball, karate and athletics, to inspire children to take up sport.

Elsewhere in the world, US Olympians took part in more than 2,000 separate Olympic Days events across the country, reaching hundreds of thousands of people, while in France more than a million visitors participated in Olympian-led celebrations in Paris.

In Rwanda, WOA Olympian for Life Tracy Evans OLY (Freestyle Skiing - Lillehammer 1994, Nagano 1998, Salt Lake 2002) led a collaboration between US and Rwandan Olympians to help celebrate gender equality among children. Australian Olympians were out in force, spreading the Olympic values in schools, Olympians in India shared their journeys in a special video documentary to inspire the next generation and the Lithuania NOA worked with their NOC to help host the country’s largest mass sports and culture event for Olympic Day.

We can’t wait to hear your plans for Olympic Day 2018.  Make sure to update us by sending details of your activities to info@thewoa.org and sharing via social media using the hashtag #OlympicDay and tagging @worldolympians (Twitter) and @worldolympiansassociation (Facebook).

Photo credit: IOC