Paris 2024 Olympics ~ Foundation Highlights

• “Trucefulness Awards." Presented in the heart of Paris to two honorees, for their roles as “Truce-Bearers." Tegla Loroupe, Humanitarian and Olympic Marathon Champion, and Thomas Bach, Olympian and President of the International Olympic Committee.

• A Compelling Cultural Offering. By our poet laureate Colin Goedecke. Being Truceful. A call to everyone in the world to be a face and voice of truce. Shared out far and wide on YouTube.

• Notable Guests. Including descendants of the founder of the modern Olympic movement.

• Generous Hosts & Sponsors. Who helped make our program possible. From the World Olympians Association running OLY House, to The Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU), and Hitachi Vantara.

Shared Humanity

To us, sharing our humanity means sharing our best selves, relating to each other freely, safely and peacefully. In the spirit of the ancient Olympic truce. And engaging sentiently, reverently, with the living world, the Earth, that flows in natural balance around us.

The modern Olympics are not about sport. but about educating the youth of the world through sport — and culture. Interlinking the Olympic rings with the ideals of excellence, respect, and friendship.

They convene youth to compete together, live together and thereafter cooperate together. No surprise the word “together” was recently added to the Olympic motto, now: “Faster, Higher, Stronger, Together.”

Because the power of shared participation rises far above the power of gold.

Through culture, as well as sport, Olympic education is a hands-on activity. Its ideals are at the service of and symbols of our greater humanity, as are the Games themselves, the largest celebrations of solidarity on Earth.

To underscore this and further elevate the 2024 Olympics, we made a unique cultural offering, as we did at the 2018 Games. By our poet laureate Colin Goedecke. A call to everyone in the world to be a face and voice of truce. A virtue reflected in our Foundation's poem-anthem.

The specially and originally-composed visual, voiced and written poetics we’ve contributed, ones seeable and hearable on our site, and on YouTube, invite everyone to embody and express their deeper humanity, and allow others their freest ways of being. 

We presented “Trucefulness Awards" to two honorees, at a ceremony at OLY House, a 19th century chateau in the heart of Paris, during the Summer Games. For their roles as “Truce-Bearers." Tegla Loroupe, Humanitarian and Olympic Marathon Champion, and Thomas Bach, Olympian and President of the International Olympic Committee. You can find our former awardees here. And a photo gallery of them here.

We invite you to share your greater humanity by seeking and living in trucefulness ~

with yourself, others and the natural world.

If you’d like to read the 2024 Truce~Bearer Award poems, “A Body of Truce” is here,

and “Bringing Solidarity to the World” is here.

If you’d like to read our opening remarks at the August 4th, 2024 Truce~Bearer Awards event, click here.

Notable Guests at Our Event

We were honored to have among a wealth of special and other guests, descendants of Pierre de Coubertin, the modern Olympic movement founder. As well as those of Jesse Owens of the USA and Lutz Long of Germany; Olympians who were both competitors and friends at the 1936 Berlin Games.

Our Generous Paris Hosts, Sponsors & Volunteers

Bringing our program and messages of truce forth in Paris during the Games was made possible by our hosts, the World Olympians Association running OLY House, our ongoing collaborators and champions, The Business Council for International Understanding (BCIU), and Hitachi Vantara. We’re grateful for their enthusiastic support. Likewise, for our volunteers, not least Colin Goedecke, who also serves as our poet laureate and guides The Poetisphere.