08 August 2025 - Over two decades, the IOC has taken major steps to embed safeguarding across the Olympic Movement, building systems, supporting athletes and working to ensure safer environments at every level of sport. Here is the journey that changed the system.

I’ll never know what I could have achieved,” reflects Gloria Viseras from Spain, as she looks back on a sporting career that bears the weight of something no athlete should have to carry. Viseras was just 15 years old when she stepped onto the floor at the Olympic Games Moscow 1980 – a gifted gymnast representing her country on the world’s biggest sporting stage. But behind the poise of her performances in the Olympic spotlight was a hidden truth: Viseras was a survivor of severe abuse, suffering in silence at the hands of someone she was supposed to trust.