COC Renews Partnership with RBC until 2024

Thursday, January 12, 2017 — TORONTO — Today, the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) announced that RBC is renewing its support of the Canadian Olympic Team for an extended eight years until 2024 as a Premier National Partner. RBC is the longest-standing partner of Team Canada, having supported it uninterruptedly since 1947.

RBC first came on board to help send Canadian athletes to the St. Moritz 1948 Olympic Winter Games in Switzerland, and it has been investing in Team Canada for the past 37 Olympic Games.

Over the last 70 years, RBC has championed the growth of the Olympic Movement in Canada, by supporting grassroots initiatives that give youth access to sport and by providing the country’s top athletes with the added help they need to reach the Olympic podium. Canada’s largest financial institution has become a leader in developing the next generation of Olympians, most notably with the launch today of Season 2 of RBC Training Ground, an RBC-led program that will travel to 26 communities to uncover some of the country’s most promising young athletes and put them on their path to the Olympic Games. RBC is working in partnership with the COC, the Canadian Olympic Foundation, national sport federations, the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network and CBC Sports. In its inaugural year, 25 young athletes, out of the 400 who took part in four regional qualifying events across the country, were selected to enter national development programs and received RBC funding to train and compete.

Together, the COC and RBC have also developed programs to give more financial support to current high performance athletes, such as the RBC Olympians Program where nearly 200 Olympians and Para-athletes have been hired as RBC Ambassadors to share their athletic journeys with Canadians across the country while training. Several of these athletes leveraged the skills and experience acquired through the RBC Olympians Program and landed full-time employment with the bank following their sporting career.

QUOTES

“RBC’s commitment to the Canadian Olympic Team is unparalleled in its longevity and generosity. Canada’s largest financial institution has helped thousands of athletes go to the Games and compete against the best in the world since 1947. Now looking ahead, we couldn’t be more grateful for their renewed support in developing the next generations of Olympians. RBC is a critical part of the team’s past and future success.”

– Chris Overholt, CEO & Secretary General, COC

“RBC is proud to extend our support for Canadian athletes and to help discover our next generation of Olympic hopefuls for many years to come. We have been a long-standing partner with the COC for 70 years and this sponsorship is a great source of pride for our employees, our clients and our company.”

– Mary DePaoli, Chief Brand and Communications Officer, RBC

About RBC:

Royal Bank of Canada is Canada’s largest bank, and one of the largest banks in the world, based on market capitalization. We are one of North America’s leading diversified financial services companies, and provide personal and commercial banking, wealth management, insurance, investor services and capital markets products and services on a global basis. We have over 80,000 full- and part-time employees who serve more than 16 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the U.S. and 36 other countries. For more information, please visit http://www.rbc.com/.‎

RBC helps communities prosper, supporting a broad range of community initiatives through donations, community investments and employee volunteer activities. For more information please see: http://www.rbc.com/community-sustainability/.