Visa Introduces Team Visa Roster Ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020
13.11.2019 15:00:00 EET | Business Wire | Press release
Visa (NYSE: V), the Worldwide Payment Technology Partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, today announced its most diverse roster of athletes on Team Visa Tokyo 2020. Representing 43 countries, the most in Team Visa history, the current roster is comprised of 70+ athletes across 30+ sports, including new additions to The Games: Surfing, Skateboarding and Sport Climbing.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191113005219/en/
Visa Introduces Team Visa Roster Ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020 (Graphic: Business Wire)
The announcement was made at the Team Visa Summit, hosted at the company’s San Francisco Innovation Center. The Summit offers athletes resources on how to improve financial literacy, benefit from digital payments and elevate their personal brand.
“As one of the longest standing partners of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Visa looks forward to Tokyo 2020. Set to be the largest Games yet, Tokyo 2020 will feature 7,000 hours of broadcast programming and three billion minutes of streamed content,” said Chris Curtin, chief brand and innovation marketing officer, Visa. “Our Team Visa Tokyo 2020 roster reflects The Games themselves: globally diverse, representative of new emerging sports and larger than ever. We are proud to reveal this year’s Team Visa roster and support these athletes as go for Gold in Tokyo.”
The Team Visa Tokyo 2020 roster includes decorated Olympians (Simone Biles, Gymnastics, USA, Katie Ledecky, Swimming, USA, Daniel Dias, Para Swimming, Brazil and Yelyzaveta Mereshko, Para Swimming, Ukraine), World Champions (Megan Rapinoe, Football, USA, PV Sindhu, Badminton, India, Mariana Pajón, BMX, Colombia and Oksana Masters, Para Cycling, USA) and 16 first-time Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls (Kanoa Igarashi, Surfing, Japan and Poppy Starr Olsen, Skateboarding, Australia and Sean McColl, Sport Climbing, Canada, among others). View the current Team Visa roster for Tokyo 2020 here.
“I am honored to join Team Visa and share the spirit of The Games with these incredible athletes as we prepare for Tokyo 2020," said Simone Biles, four-time Olympic gold medalist, Gymnastics, USA. “The opportunity to compete on the world stage while representing our country is truly an honor, and the encouragement and support we receive from teammates, family, friends, fans and our partners, like Visa, really means a lot as we pursue our lifelong goals and dreams.”
“The Team Visa Summit is a great opportunity to meet and interact with my peers in advance of The Games,” said Kanoa Igarashi, Surfing, Japan. “In hoping to compete at my first Olympic Games, having a family of athletes in Team Visa will help me feel more at home knowing I have a sense of community by my side.”
Team Visa Tokyo 2020
Founded in 2000, Team Visa has championed nearly 500 athletes. Each has been selected based on athletic achievements, character and personal journey, and are representative of many of Visa’s brand values and priorities, including:
- Gender Equality: Since the beginning of Team Visa, on average 54% of Team Visa have been women, including the 41 women athletes for Tokyo 2020, underscoring Visa’s efforts to empower more women athletes and support the development of women’s sports.
- Social Impact: In addition to excelling in their sport, many Team Visa athletes advocate for organizations that help to positively impact their local communities. Alison Cerutti (Beach Volleyball, Brazil) has an organization in Brazil that helps give underserved children in his community access to sports, health services and more. Erick Barrondo (Athletics, Guatemala) has demonstrated a similar dedication to helping youth through a charitable race walk he and his wife started to benefit impoverished children in Guatemala.
- Small Business: Visa is a true advocate for the 30 million small businesses in the U.S. and extends that commitment to its Team Visa athletes. From 19-year-old Poppy Starr Olsen (Skateboarding, Australia), an artist and jewelry maker who has leveraged her business to fund her athletic career, to Megan Rapinoe (Football, USA), whose on-field passion is matched by a commitment to growing her purposeful fashion company, Visa is dedicated to supporting athletes in their businesses endeavors.
To learn more about Visa’s ongoing support of Olympic and Paralympic athletes, visit Visa’s Olympic partnership page.
About Visa Inc.
Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network - enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device, for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa, visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191113005219/en/
Contact information
Media Contacts:
Visa | Sheerin Salimi | shesalim@visa.com
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
Merz Therapeutics Receives EU/EEA Approval for XEOMIN® for the Treatment of Pediatric Spasticity Associated With Pes Equinus17.9.2026 09:00:00 EEST | Press release
Merz Therapeutics, a leading player in neurology-focused specialty pharma, today announced that it has received approval in the European Union (EU) / European Economic Area (EEA) for XEOMIN® (incobotulinumtoxinA) for the symptomatic treatment of spasticity associated with pes equinus, a condition in which tight calf muscles cause the foot to point downward, in ambulant and non-ambulant children and adolescents with cerebral palsy (CP) aged 2 to 17 years.1,2 This approval expands access to an established botulinum neurotoxin therapy for some of the youngest and most vulnerable patients across Europe. Spasticity is a common and often disruptive symptom in children and adolescents with neurological conditions, including CP. This condition is associated with muscle tightness that can severely restrict physical movement, daily functioning, and personal autonomy. Among children and youth, CP stands as a primary driver of this symptom and remains the most prevalent childhood motor disability,
Mediterranean Network for Haemoglobinopathies Launches in Rome, Connecting Clinical Experts and Patient Leaders to Advance Equitable Care17.9.2026 09:00:00 EEST | Press release
The Mediterranean Network for Haemoglobinopathies (MNfH) was recently launched at Palazzo Wedekind in Rome, bringing together leading clinicians and patient representatives from Cyprus, Greece, and Italy, with the Thalassaemia International Federation (TIF). Supported by Avanzanite Bioscience as Founding Sponsor, the independent regional platform will connect expertise across borders, strengthen the patient voice, and turn shared knowledge into practical initiatives that can improve care for people living with haemoglobinopathies. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260916107487/en/ Adam Plich, Co-Founder and CEO, Avanzanite Bioscience. Avanzanite enabled the establishment of the Network in recognition of both the considerable expertise that already exists across the Mediterranean and the persistent gaps that remain in access to specialist care, sustainable blood supplies, treatment advances and evidence-based inn
IKI Advances Promotional Forecast Accuracy by More Than 10 Points With SymphonyAI17.9.2026 08:03:00 EEST | Press release
SymphonyAI, a global leader in Vertical AI, today announced that IKI, one of Lithuania's largest grocery retailers, is implementing SymphonyAI's Promotional Evaluation and Promotional Planning solutions across its network of 250 stores, as part of its strategy to strengthen data-driven promotional planning. IKI continuously evaluates opportunities to strengthen its category management and promotional planning capabilities. As promotional programs become increasingly sophisticated, the retailer has invested in advanced analytics and AI-driven forecasting to support data-driven decision making across its business. In its initial work with SymphonyAI across select categories, IKI has seen promotional forecast accuracy improve by more than 10 percentage points, along with a reduction in stock-outs during promotional periods. "At IKI, we are constantly looking for innovative ways to strengthen our decision-making with better data and technology," said Klavs Berzins, Head of Category Managem
Lattice Expands Secure Control FPGA Leadership with New Lattice Mach-N2 Family17.9.2026 05:00:00 EEST | Press release
Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ: LSCC), the low power programmable and platform firmware leader, today announced Lattice Mach™-N2 FPGA family, extending its long-running secure control FPGA leadership with new devices purpose-built for system control and security in modern infrastructure. Built on the Lattice Nexus™ 2 small FPGA platform, Mach-N2 combines integrated flash, a hardware Root of Trust, and CNSA 2.0-compliant post-quantum cryptography (PQC) with crypto agility for trusted, always-on system control and security across next-generation systems. "The demands on system control and security are accelerating as post-quantum mandates take hold, and customers building long-lifecycle infrastructure seek solutions that will help them design with today and tomorrow’s security needs in mind," said Esam Elashmawi, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Lattice Semiconductor. "Mach-N2 represents a significant step forward in logic density and bandwidth while adding the most complete post-qua
Lattice Advances FPGA Design with New Leadership AI-Driven Development Tool, Lattice Prompt17.9.2026 05:00:00 EEST | Press release
Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ: LSCC), the low power programmable and platform firmware leader, today introduced a new leadership AI-powered FPGA development tool for small and mid-range FPGAs that redefines how FPGA developers work across the full design flow. Lattice Prompt pairs with AI agentic tools developers already use, combining them with Lattice design tools, knowledge base, and documentation to turn natural language inputs into validated responses, dramatically accelerating FPGA development while optimizing design performance and capability. "Accelerating time-to-market demands and rising design complexity are putting mounting pressure on FPGA developers to do more with every design cycle," said Esam Elashmawi, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Lattice Semiconductor. "Lattice Prompt gives developers AI-assisted access to the full design flow, grounded in Lattice's validated knowledge, so they can focus on what matters most: building differentiated systems." Lattice Prompt:
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom