Adecco and the International Olympic Committee extend and strengthen Career Development and Job Placement support for active and retiring athletes

Adecco, the world leader in human resource (HR) services, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) today announced the extension of the Athletes' Career Programme (ACP), an initiative designed to facilitate the integration of athletes into the labor market both during and at the end of their elite sporting careers.

On the occasion of the 1,000th athlete joining the programme since Adecco and the IOC started to jointly manage the program in February 2005, Adecco CEO Dieter Scheiff and IOC President Jacques Rogge agreed to extend this important programme. These career services, specifically tailored to the needs of athletes are currently offered in over 15 countries and will be expanded throughout 2007.

"The fact that 1,000 athletes have sought professional advice since 2005 highlights the growing popularity of our programme," said Jacques Rogge. "The period following the end of a sporting career is often difficult and the Athletes' Career Programme provides support to assist athletes select the best career path and launch their professional lives after sport."

"Sports competition requires an extensive personal investment from athletes that it leaves them limited time to prepare for their professional life. This is where we come in and offer our worldwide expertise in delivering career training and placing people in the right jobs", said Dieter Scheiff. "We are proud to help athletes leverage the strength of their demonstrated traits in sport to find new challenges in the workplace and gain a foothold in the labor market."

This programme aims at facilitating the integration of athletes into the labor market through a variety of measures. In a first step, the programme helps athletes define their professional goals. Ideally, the athlete joins the programme as early as possible so that they can either enter a part-time continuing education program while they are still active as an athlete or just begin to develop and refine skills needed to enter the workforce more prepared. Adecco then assists the athlete in contacting potential employers. Here Adecco focuses on selecting companies that appreciate athletes' talents and proven traits such as a strong team spirit, competitiveness, goal-orientation and self-motivation.

The Athletes' Career Programme has two integrated tracks:

* Career Development Training - Athletes demonstrate extraordinary traits everyday in their sport. This track helps Athletes understand how to transition these into the business world and begin to accumulate transition knowledge.

* Job Placement - Athletes and Employees both have needs; this track focuses on bringing the two parties together to provide jobs for elite athletes.

About Adecco

Adecco Group is the world market leader in Human Resource services with sales of EUR 18.3 billion in 2005. The Adecco network connects over 700,000 associates with business clients each day through its network of 33,000 employees and 6,600 offices in over 70 countries and territories around the world. Headquartered in Switzerland, and managed by a multinational team with expertise in markets spanning the globe, Adecco delivers an unparalleled range of flexible staffing solutions to corporate clients and qualified associates.

About the International Olympic Committee

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), created in 1894, is a non-governmental organisation with volunteer members who represent its work around the world, and an administrative staff based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The IOC and its 203 National Olympic Committees worldwide promote the Olympic Movement, whose vision is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport. In addition to selecting the host city and coordinating the staging of the Olympic Games, the IOC and NOCs collaborate with a range of organisations and their members in the public and private sectors to place sport at the service of society. The main goal is to promote the values of Olympism, which include excellence, respect and friendship.