🎩0️⃣5️⃣9️⃣ Rebecca Ross

Meet Rebecca Ross, a veteran U.S. diplomat who, as the U.S. Attaché for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, opened new doors in the transatlantic partnership through sports and helped illustrate the Games’ potential for diplomacy.

Ross’s career in public diplomacy primed her for the role. “Sports diplomacy is one of the many things that we do as public diplomacy officers in the U.S. Department of State,” she acknowledged. 

“We do exchanges with coaches, exchanges with players - professional athletes come overseas and act as speakers, we work on grants for athletes - so it’s just one of the many things that we do as public diplomacy professionals.”

Despite her exposure to sports diplomacy as a tool within a diplomat’s toolbox, serving as the U.S. government’s coordinator for the Olympic and Paralympic Games was the first time that Ross worked fulltime in sports diplomacy. “It was super exciting, and an amazing opportunity” she noted of the experience, which began in 2022 and ended in January 2025.

Rebecca’s Story

The State Department supports a liaison and coordination office at each Olympic and Paralympic Games to liaise with the host government, to support Team USA, and to coordinate high-level visits.  U.S. diplomats who fill this highly-coveted position typically have a two-year tenure before they rotate into another role within the Foreign Service. Usually, the role is filled by a management officer for it requires a lot of logistical work, contract support, and budgeting.

Taking a break from pre-Paris2024 preparations to catch a Paris Basketball playoff match at Adidas Arena. Photo: basketball coach Melissa Diawakana.

“When I looked at the job description, I thought, ‘wow, that’s huge!’” Ross recalled. “I have a deep background in strategic planning, and I didn’t think of the job as logistics; I thought of it as public diplomacy.” Given her background, Ross was able to create a strategy around what the United States could do before and during the Games to both support Team USA and implement U.S. foreign policy priorities

Working closely on the Paris 2024 Games also provided Ross with a profound opportunity to learn about France, its culture, and its approach to hosting mega-sporting events. One of the first events she attended was the FISE Urban Sports Festival in Montpellier. “I was so impressed with how well it was organized and how the FISE organizers were using it not just as a way to showcase incredible, high-level sports, not just on how to organize a huge festival, but also how to use the festival for the policy piece.” She participated in the concurrent panels that featured speakers from around the globe who shared how they use sports to help communities, increase educational opportunities for kids, and other policy-substantive uses. “That was very eye-opening,” Ross said. “It was very helpful for me as I learned to frame sports for foreign policy.” 

The Sports Diplomacy Connection

Ross with the Paris 2024 Phryges.

As officially credentialed diplomats, Ross and her team engaged in diplomacy with their French counterparts within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Sport, Paris 2024 Organizing Committee, and the City of Paris. They carefully studied what the Paris 2024 Organizing Committee aimed to achieve through hosting, examining their goals related to French foreign policy, domestic policy, and the city of Paris. This provided valuable insights.

“We are hosting the next Summer Games in LA in 2028, and so this relationship between France and the United States builds through Los Angeles,” she noted, and it also extends through the 2030 Winter Games in the French Alps and the 2034 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. This continuity is exciting, Ross said, for it facilitates teamwork and the possibility to learn from each other - a key strength in this France-U.S. Summer-Winter Games cycle. 

“The Government of France was really forthcoming and really helpful,” she articulated, particularly how much her team worked through the French Ambassador for Sport Samuel Ducroquet. 

Ross with tennis legend and gender equality activist Billie Jean King. Photo: Rebecca Ross.

“We learned how one hosts a Games, how one implements a Games, how the city and foreign ministries and all of the other government ministries could work together on a federal and city level.”

Ross also engaged in types of sports diplomacy with non-government stakeholders, too. Among these were the International Olympic Committee, the Los Angeles 2028 Organizing Committee, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC), and many other sports industry and sports-adjacent non-state sports actors (NSSAs).

Many of the focal areas of Paris 2024 are reflected in the LA 2028 Games. For example, Paris 2024’s  commitment to gender equality as the first gender-equal Summer Olympics was echoed when Los Angeles pledged to make 2028 the first gender-equal Summer Paralympics. Other foreign policy focal points targeted by Paris 2024 that reverberated to LA 2028 included diverse representations and how to host greener, more sustainable Games. “That kind of cultural and intellectual exchange has been really interesting,” Ross said. “By building off each others’ work, we can have a much greater impact both in France and in the United States.”

As a diplomat who worked full-time in sports diplomacy, Ross found sport to be an incredibly effective tool for diplomacy, unparalleled in her extensive career. “I've never seen anything work like sport to get people in a room,” she said. “If you want to get anybody in a room to talk about any subject at all, even if it's a really tough subject, show it from a sports angle. And magically, people show up. It sets a great atmosphere. Then you can work together on anything.”

Mapping the Connection

From Washington DC USA to Paris, France

Further Reading/Resources

[E] Rebecca Ross. Interview with the Author, April 7, 2025.

[E] John Welborne, “Officials back from Paris after summit on Olympics,” Larchmont Chronicle, March 28, 2024.

How to Cite This Entry

Krasnoff, Lindsay Sarah. “Voices: Rebecca Ross,” FranceAndUS, https://www.franceussports.com/voices/059-rebecca-ross. (date of consultation).