This month’s coverage of [global sporting event in Italy] is supported by Runners’ Edge Alaska. We sincerely appreciate their belief in what we are doing here.
By Gavin Kentch
LAGO DI TESERO — The Olympics are inherently commercial, but want to pretend that they are not. There are no sponsors; there is, rather, the Olympic Partner Programme. These are companies that you have heard of: Allianz, Samsung, Airbnb, etc. Their logos are not plastered all over the grounds… but no one else’s is, either.
Athletes have dutifully taped over the brand name on the back of their drink belts, lest a stray “Leki” or “Salomon” or “One Way” befoul the broadcast. When USST head coach Matt Whitcomb talks with us in the mixed zone after the races, he does so with the U.S. Ski Team logo on his orange hat tastefully obscured with color coordinated, rather fetching orange tape. Our photographer, Anna Engel, was not permitted to wear her amazing custom hat out at the photo stations to do her job, because photographers may appear in passing in the background of the broadcast and no brands or bright colors are permitted. (They were very polite about it. Also, shoutout to APU Masters team mom Svea Lunøe for the kickass hats.)
Nordic Insights: TOO PINK FOR THE OLYMPICS.
The #branding, or perhaps #unbranding, extends to behind the scenes, too. I do not know what brand of water we have for the watercooler in the media tent, but I am certain that it is not Dasani, nor any other product that falls within the aegis of the, quote, “total beverage company” that is The Coca-Cola Company, because its name is covered over with black electrician’s tape. While I can only use my Visa card* in the media concession area, a non-Visa credit card processing machine has infiltrated the premises. What is the brand of this interloper? I cannot tell you: there is black tape over it, too.
(* “Visa helps bring the Olympic Games to life by supporting athletes, engaging fans at venues and at home, and enhancing Games payment experiences for all,” the International Olympic Committee, a nonprofit organization, informs me.
Personally speaking, if I had committed the cardinal sin of bringing, like, a Mastercard or a Capital One card to the Olympics, and I had to take that lesser card, go to a standalone kiosk, buy a pre-paid card, put money on that card with my loser card, and use only said pre-paid Visa-branded card to buy things at the Olympics, having to put more money on it when I wanted to buy more things and constantly track the balance to make sure I didn’t run out, that would not “enhanc[e the] Games payment experience[]” for me. That said, I am here only by virtue of readers’ generous donations via my GoFundMe, and am eating granola in my hotel room nearly every night to save on expenses, so I am probably not the best person to hold forth with authority on best practices in the payment services space.)
If you thought that my take on Visa was snarky, now we are going to talk about Rule 40 of the Olympic Charter (more precisely the bylaw to same). Personally speaking, I would say that Rule 40 operates to ensure that, the one time every four years that anyone in the world cares about Olympians’ niche sports (no offense, skeleton), they are not allowed to talk about their personal sponsors.
The International Olympic Committee, by contrast, says, “The IOC runs an international marketing programme based on the principle of solidarity: NOCs participate in, and receive revenues from, the global programme with the understanding that revenues will be shared with every other NOC in order to fund the operation of NOCs, sports development and Olympic Games participation, as well as to support the hosting of the Olympic Games themselves. This programme helps secure funding of all national Olympic teams, regardless of the individual profile, commercial or sporting success of their athletes.”
The actual extent of funding that flows from the IOC to “sports development” in this country is the subject for another article, but suffice to say that you should not stop donating to the NNF Drive for 25 any time soon if you care about and would like to support sports development in this country.
Fun fact: The principles for interpreting Rule 40, by their terms, apply to athletes (also team members, coaches, officials, etc.). They do not apply to “other accredited people, including broadcasters and volunteers.”
I am one such other accredited person not subject to Rule 40. I am therefore now going to list for you all the personal sponsors athletes have that they are not allowed to tell you about until two days after the closing ceremony.
My research for this piece consists solely of trawling athletes’ social media and looking at race photos; Rule 40 casts such a long shadow that I truly did not feel comfortable reaching out to athletes about this during the blackout period. I’m not just going for plausible deniability here, I really didn’t. Also this felt a little silly to bother them about during the Games; no need to ensnare them with my snark when they are busy focusing on their races.
Anyway. Here are athletes’ current personal sponsors that I can divine from some combination of their social media, personal website, and race photos:
Rosie Brennan
Headwear sponsor: HEX Cook Inlet LLC
Sponsors: Paradis Sport, Rossignol, Swix, Julbo, LillSport
Jessie Diggins
Headwear sponsors: Allianz, The Emily Program
Sponsors: Salomon, Swix, Mortenson Construction, L’Occitane, Stifel Financial, Delta, Saatva, L.L.Bean, Toyota, Oakley, Dermatone, Sidas, Larissa Loden
John Steel Hagenbuch
Sponsors: None that I can discern. (He is on Fischer skis, Fischer boots, Swix poles, and LillSport gloves, fwiw.) Dude literally just uses Instagram to showcase spending time with friends and loved ones in beautiful places. I have not a whit snarky to say about this; it is very wholesome, and I deeply respect his using social media for this purpose and nothing more. We should all be so fortunate as to appreciate our lives and our loved ones in this manner.
Okay, it is possible that Steel Hagenbuch’s enduring status as an NCAA student-athlete bears on this — here he is winning yesterday’s 7.5km classic at the Middlebury Carnival by 65 seconds — but given how the man carries himself I still find it eminently plausible that he is allowed to publicly have sponsors but would still just prefer to talk about his friends.
Lauren Jortberg
Headwear sponsor: NNF
Sponsors: Salomon, Oakley, LillSport, Swix
Julia Kern
Headwear sponsors: Lumi Experiences, Dermatone
Sponsors: Atomic, Bivo, Skida, Paradis Sport, Vuarnet
Zak Ketterson
Headwear sponsors: Team Birkie, Gear West
Sponsors: Rossignol, Training Peaks, Oakley, Leki, LillSport
Kendall Kramer
Sponsors: Rossignol, Swix, Toko
Novie McCabe
Headwear sponsors: The Mazama Store, AeroMech Inc.
Sponsors: Oakley, One Way, LillSport, Fischer
Zanden McMullen
Sponsors: Fischer, Toko, Oakley, One Way
Ben Ogden
Headwear sponsors: Vermont Plank Flooring, UnTapped
Sponsors: Madshus, Swix, Oakley, Bivo, Toko, Stio, Carter Hall Media, Oakley
JC Schoonmaker
Headwear sponsor: Tahoe XC
Sponsors: Fischer, One Way, Toko, Diana Financial
Gus Schumacher
Headwear sponsor: Protect Our Winters
Sponsors: Rossignol, EnjoyWinter, Toko, Skida, Bombas, Swix, Tripoint
Sammy Smith
Headwear sponsor: Decked
Sponsors: Salomon, Oakley, Swix
Hailey Swirbul
Sponsors: Madshus, Bliz
Hunter Wonders
Headwear sponsor: Furie Operating Alaska, LLC
Sponsors: Fischer, IDT, Oakley, Toko, One Way
Jack Young
Headwear sponsors: Colby, Jay Peak Resort
Sponsors: Salomon, Toko, Tripoint
[Read more: Mark James & Guy Osborn, “Defining the olympic legal framework and the IOC’s lawmaking capability: lex Olympica, Olympic law and their relationships with lex sportiva and sports law,” 25 Int. Sports Law J. 130–40 (2025)]
This is where I usually put another ask for money for my own expenses in getting to the Olympics… but given that nearly all these athletes have few sponsors other than their personal gear sponsors, you should probably give them money rather than me. I will go back to stumping for funds for me in the next article.
