Sport has the power to deliver impact everywhere, every day. The Olympic and Paralympic Games are the largest sporting platform in the world. The fundamental principles instilled in the Olympic Spirit are clear - promoting the Olympic values of Excellence, Respect and Friendship with the world to create an international committment to goodwill.
These values have seen the Olympics and Paralympics garner worldwide reach to over 3 billion people, using sport as a vehicle to make society a better place. The Olympic Agenda 2020+5 sets out the IOC’s roadmap to strengthen the role of sport in society, to ultimately build a better world through sport.
The IOC’s long term partnership strategy, The Olympic Partners (TOP) programme, has worked to integrate purpose as a fundamental aspect of the partnership, further demonstrating that sport is an effective platform to activate brand purpose. The partnership between the IOC and Worldwide Olympic and Paralympic Partner Procter & Gamble (P&G) exemplifies this purpose-led approach. P&G are fostering positive action by supporting and empowering athlete parents, such as through the Olympic Village Nursery initiative, which was executed at the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The first initiative of its kind, the IOC and P&G launched the Olympic Village Nursery through P&Gs leading brand Pampers. The nursery provided a comfortable and convenient space for athlete parents to spend time with their children outside of competition. This ensured athletes and their families were able to focus on achieving their personal best on the world’s biggest stage.
The pioneering Olympic Village Nursery was spearheaded by US track champion Allyson Felix, 11-time Olympic medallist, mother of two and an advocate for athlete mothers. Felix was recently elected to the IOC Athletes’ Commission by athletes competing in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The nursery was a dedicated area to provide parent athletes and their children a space to spend quality time together, located in the heart of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Village Plaza. As well as including a private lactation space for breastfeeding or pumping, it was designed to feel like a home away from home and came equipped with bean bags, toys, books and a changing table. Pampers also offered access to high-quality diapers/nappies and wipes.
Beyond the on-the-ground, tangible support that the Nursery offered at the Games, the nursery is part of the IOC's wider commitment to recognise the unique challenges athletes face mentally and physically including those that parent athletes face while balancing very demanding careers with parenthood.
The recently created IOC has a commitment to understanding and addressing the needs of all global athletes at all stages of their sporting career. In recent years, athlete mothers have received a lot of attention when discussing their struggles with returning to sport after childbirth, from managing maternal health alongside intensive training regimes to trying to retain sponsorships that are imperative to funding their sporting careers. Athlete mothers aren’t alone in this, with athlete fathers also opening up about the challenges they face with juggling travel intensive and demanding competition schedules that take them away from their families for extended periods of time. Furthermore, athlete parents aren't alone in the challenges they face when it comes to managing the responsibilities of parenthood, alongside their careers. This challenge is reflected across different professions, across different parts of society, all over the globe. Together, the IOC, the IPC and P&G aim to play their part in addressing these challenges, through the implementation of the Olympic Village Nursery.
For P&G, and their leading brand Pampers, the nursery serves as a shining example of their purpose-led partnership with the IOC and IPC to support athletes at the heart of the Olympic and Paralympic Movements through their superior products and services.
The Paris Olympic Village hosted the most athlete parents of any Olympic or Paralympic Games in history. The levels of on the ground and digital engagement with the Olympic and Paralympic Village Nursery show its popularity and far-reaching impact. Across the Paris 2024 Games, the nursery accumulated:
Paris 2024 Olympic Games: 31 families booked the Nursery 64 times
Paris 2024 Paralympic Games: 26 families booked the Nursery 70 times. The space was fully booked for the entirety of the Games period after the first 4 days.
Key figures who used this space include:
Parent athletes created un-prompted user generated content on their own social media channels. For example, Australian Water Polo player Keesja Gofers [10.9k followers Instagram] shared content on Instagram advocating for the nursery space. The use of these social-first channels has helped drive further attention towards the initiative, which resulted in global media coverage, in which the Olympic Village Nursery was mentioned 683 times between 1st June and 27th August 2024.
“You are inside the Olympic Village, so it is so convenient, and you can do what you would normally do at home. And I think that's the beautiful thing about it,” said Allyson Felix.
