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‘THE SCHOLARSHIP IS A HUGE OPPORTUNITY FOR ATHLETES TO REACH THEIR FULL POTENTIAL’ KSENIYA GRIGOREVA W ith 2017 marking the beginning of a new cycle of the Olympic Solidarity plan, the past year has been of particular signifi cance for hundreds of athletes who harbour dreams of glory at the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018. This is due to the vital fi nancial support that the new plan provides to aspiring Olympic athletes from National Olympic Committees (NOCs) all over Pictured Olympic Solidarity scholar Kseniya Grigoreva in action at the 2017 Alpine World Ski Championships the world. The budget for the Olympic Solidarity plan 2017-2020 has reached a record high of USD 509,285,000 – a 16 per cent increase on the previous cycle. And of the 21 programmes on offer to NOCs as part of the plan, two have been specifi cally designed with PyeongChang 2018 in mind. First, the programme of Olympic Scholarships for Athletes “PyeongChang 2018” that focuses on improving the competitiveness of the Olympic Winter Games by helping NOCs prepare for the Games. Scholarship holders receive a share of the USD 10 million budget allocated to the programme. This sum goes towards a monthly training grant intended to fund athletes’ training and coaching requirements as well as a travel subsidy for transport costs incurred during their participation in Olympic qualifi cation competitions. Second, there is the Team Support Grant, a programme that supports ice hockey and curling teams in their fi nal bids to qualify – and then their preparation – for PyeongChang. After the selection of the fi rst group of scholarship holders in November 2016, the last major batch of scholarships was confi rmed in March, just under a year before the start of the Games in February 2018. Uzbek Alpine skier Kseniya Grigoreva is just one scholarship holder who is benefi ting from Olympic Solidarity funding in the lead-up to PyeongChang 2018. The 30-year-old will be competing at her third successive Games, having also represented Uzbekistan in Vancouver and Sochi, and is hopeful that the grant will boost her chances of bettering her 64th place fi nish in the women’s giant slalom event four years ago. “I only recently received the scholarship, however I framed a plan straight away: go to a training camp in Austria to prepare for competitions throughout Europe and, most importantly, upgrade all my ski gear,” she reveals. “The Olympic Solidarity scholarship is a huge opportunity for athletes representing countries with only the most basic level of support for Alpine skiing to reach their full potential. “As it stands, Olympic Solidarity scholarship funding is the only option available to me as I receive neither government nor private sponsor support.” It has been a similar story for another scholarship holder – freestyle skier Kelly Sildaru. “I was able to plan my trips more easily, choose training camps and work with experts if needed,” says the Estonian teenager, who had high hopes of a medal in PyeongChang before suffering a serious knee injury. “[The best thing about the scholarship is] that there is guaranteed support OLYMPIC REVIEW 59 OLYMPIC SOLIDARITY