FILE - Commissioner and co-chairman Dionne Koller speaks during The Commission on the State of U.S. Olympics and Paralympics hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2023. A Senate subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday, March 20, 2024, titled “Promoting a Safe Environment in U.S. Athletics.” SafeSport CEO Ju’Riese Colon and commission co-chair, Dionne Koller, are among those scheduled to testify. FILE - U.S.
Another key change would be to untether the Athletes Advisory Commission from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. That arrangement is intended to eliminate conflicts of interest inherent in housing an athlete’s group under the same umbrella as the organization with which it sometimes comes into conflict.on the State of the U.S. Olympics and Paralympics, a panel established by Congress in 2020 in the wake of the Larry Nassar sex-abuse scandal.
That led to a discussion about SafeSport’s funding model; it receives $20 million a year from the USOPC, which recoups some of that money by charging individual sports organizations a “high-use contribution fee” that itself can discourage those agencies from bringing cases to the center. Unlike most other countries, the U.S. government does not provide funding for its Olympic teams. The rewritten bill wouldn’t change the core of that philosophy, but it does seek government funding — for the SafeSport Center and for a new Office of Grassroots Sports and Fitness within the Department of Health and Human Services.