Imagine if there was an Olympics for healthy ageing.

Imagine if your country was competing; how would it perform? Would it win a medal for life expectancy? Do you think it would win gold for preventative health?

These are some of the questions we’re exploring as part of our Going for gold project. In the run-up to the Paris 2024 Olympics, we’ll be looking at how countries perform across a range of “healthy ageing” events and disciplines.

With the 2024 Olympics just four months away, this summer presents a perfect opportunity to engage with global policymakers and health stakeholders heading to Paris for the world’s biggest sporting event.

Using existing data from ILC’s Healthy Ageing and Prevention Index, as well as other global health data sources, we will be compiling our very own “Healthy Ageing Medal Table” that ranks countries across eight events. We’ll be using the titles of existing Olympic disciplines but putting our own spin on them, tying them to healthy ageing and prevention topics such as immunisation, physical activity, and life expectancy.

Our preliminary findings have highlighted some interesting results. While two countries stand out, perhaps less obvious countries also perform well. So far, we’ve found that:

• A country that has competed at the Commonwealth Games, but never at the Olympics, wins a gold and a bronze medal.
• Another country that wins a gold medal has never won an actual medal at the Olympics since first participating in 1920.
• Three countries have won more than one medal; two are from Asia, one is from Oceania.
• Two countries have each won a silver medal and are in the Top 10 on our Index.
• One country with a gold medal has a population of 1,600, while another has a population of 126 million.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be releasing more details about our eight events and our medallists. Until then, have a guess at who our winners are by emailing PatrickSwain@ilcuk.org.uk.

Save the date for our medal ceremony

On 16 July, we will be hosting an event in Paris to present medals to delegates from the best-performing countries. We’ll use our findings to spotlight where countries could do better by investing in preventative health and taking bolder actions on healthy ageing, to support people around the world to live better for longer.

Visit our programme page for more details and to keep up to date with our findings.

This project has been financially supported by Sanofi.