The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on February 24th that they have revamped and redesigned the Olympic Athletes’ Hub in preparation for this summers’ Games in Rio.
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The Olympic Athletes’ Hub started before the 2012 Summer Games in London; the idea was to create a one-stop shop for fans and athletes to connect on social media. Fans would have a place to follow their favorite athletes, while athletes would be able to interact with one another in one place, like never before.
We covered the Athletes’ Hub before the 2014 Sochi Games and back then it was a great tool for fan and athlete connection and interaction. One of the main features was that it filtered all of an athletes’ social media profiles into one easily accessible place. This was designed to help create more engagement and connection to athletes and countries during the relatively short Olympic window.
At the time we laid out the three biggest components and features of the Olympic Athletes’ Hub: 1, Easily Follow Your Favorite Athlete, 2. Social Rewards Encourages Interaction, 3. Searchable Feeds for Athlete, Teams, Sports and Games. These three mechanisms alone created a great online platform to help engage fans and athletes to propel the popularity of the games and the athletes; however the revamped Hub offers those same features while providing many more benefits for the athletes.
The new and improved Olympic Athletes’ Hub was developed as a part of the IOC’s 2020 Agenda. The hope for the new Hub is to be an exceptional resource for the athletes, going far beyond fan interaction, to truly help them improve their upcoming Olympic experience as well as their careers, and maybe most importantly their lives after the spotlight is gone.
The new features of the Hub create a place for athletes to have the opportunity to learn more about their current situations as well as their possibilities after the Olympics. Athletes will have the forum to share their experiences with one another like never before. The virtual hub offers vital information and career resources that might not be available to these athletes anywhere else.
The Hub provides insights and opportunities for employment during and after an athletes’ Olympic career. There are tabs for; Life Skills, Education, Anti-Doping, Health & Well-Being, and many more.
After signing up and verifying they are or were an Olympian or hopeful, athletes will have the opportunity for free career counseling, job possibilities at the IOC, and receive an Olympian.org email address. A very practical and straightforward benefit of the Hub is simple news as well as more detailed information about Rio, 2016.
Many athletes spend their whole lives training and preparing for the Olympics and it can be over in a heartbeat. By becoming a part of this community the IOC is offering to help athletes turn their transferable skills such as dedication, hard work, perseverance, and leadership into careers after sports from the corporate world to coaching.
Although the IOC may not be perfect and their reputation as a governing body has come under question more than a few times; the revamped Olympic Athletes’ Hub could prove to be an amazing use of technology to improve lives.
What started as a forum for fan and athlete interaction has been enhanced and made into something much more beneficial. The new Olympic Athletes’ Hub will hopefully create a lasting online community for Olympians past and present to learn, share, and improve their lives.