The rights of olympic child athletes: the need for rights-based reform

Participation in the Olympic Games undoubtedly represents the pinnacle of athletic excellence. However, as the number of child athletes continues to rise across successive editions of the Games, important questions emerge regarding the adequacy of the legal and human rights protections afforded to them under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This paper contends that Olympic child athletes occupy a complex dual status: they are both elite performers and children entitled to specific legal protections under international law. As such, it contends that the participation of children in the Olympic Games must be understood as a matter of children’s rights, carrying substantive legal and operational implications. Drawing upon existing scholarship on sport, human rights, and the Olympic Movement, the paper argues that current IOC frameworks exhibit significant shortcomings in embedding key CRC principles. Through a three-part analysis, the paper calls for the explicit and systematic incorporation of children’s rights into the IOC’s governance and regulatory structures, asserting that genuine adherence to international human rights norms necessitates the full recognition and protection of child athletes within the Olympic framework.