What is the COCV?
The Comité Olímpico Cabo-verdiano is the National Olympic Committee of Cape Verde, based at Travessa Pierre de Coubertin in Praia.[1] [4] It is a small-state NOC: the country's largest Olympic delegation to date was seven athletes, at Paris 2024.[6]
The committee states that its purpose is the "preservação dos valores olímpicos e a representação de Cabo Verde em grandes eventos desportivos mundiais" — preservation of Olympic values and representation of Cape Verde at major world sporting events — together with projects tied to social responsibility and national sports policy.[1] That is its own framing and is reported here as such.
What that means for a competition record is the same as for any NOC: an entry to the Olympic Games or the African Games from Cape Verde passes through this committee. Because the delegation is small, a single qualification can change the size of it, which is why the committee's own published milestones are framed around individual qualifying performances rather than medal counts.[1] [6]
What does it do?
Its powers are the Olympic Charter's. NOCs have "the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games and at the regional, continental or world multisports competitions patronised by the IOC", must "develop, promote and protect the Olympic Movement in their respective countries", and "must preserve their autonomy and resist all pressures of any kind".[8] This page could not retrieve the committee's own statutes, so the account of its powers rests on the Charter and on the committee's descriptive pages rather than on its governing instrument.[1]
The most concrete documented activity is direct athlete funding. The committee paid Olympic scholarships to ten athletes across the Paris 2024 cycle, at $750 each paid quarterly with retroactive effect from January 2022 to July 2024, on a reported total of 24,320,000 Cape Verdean escudos, and signed protocols with the beneficiary federations on coach training and athlete preparation.[5] The report does not state whether those funds came from Olympic Solidarity or from the committee's own resources, and this page does not assume it.
The committee also runs the domestic Olympic-movement programme — Olympic Day and related events — which its history pages date to the first presidency.[1]
When was it founded and when was it recognised by the IOC?
These are four years apart and are commonly collapsed. The founding is 17 July 1989: Cape Verde's state news agency reported the committee marking its 36th anniversary on 17 July 2025, which fixes the date independently of the committee's own telling.[3]
Recognition came later. Olympedia records that the Cape Verdean committee was recognised at the IOC Session in Monte Carlo in September 1993.[2] This page could not corroborate the 1993 recognition against an IOC document and carries it on that single source.
The Olympic debut is a third date again: the committee states that "Cabo Verde se estreou nos Jogos Olímpicos em 1996", under its first honorary president Antero Barros, and it marks the 2004 qualification of the boxer Flávio Furtado as the first earned on merit rather than by universality place.[1] Olympedia likewise gives 1996 as the debut.[2] Founded 1989, recognised 1993, first Games 1996 — the three should not be merged.
How is it funded and governed?
This page could not establish the committee's annual budget. No annual report, audited accounts or budget figure was reachable on its site or elsewhere, and none is stated here. The one sourced signal is negative: the president described the delegation sent to the 2025 African School Games in Algeria as "the smallest delegation we have ever taken", made "despite budget limitations".[3] The scholarship programme above is the only quantified spending this page located.[5]
Governance is by elected executive commission and fiscal council. Filomena Fortes was re-elected on 4 December 2021, the single list drawing 30 votes of 32 with two blanks at the electoral assembly, and stood again for the 2025-2029 term at elections held in Praia on 22 November 2025 on a single list.[7] [9]
Two sources conflict on when her tenure began and this page does not resolve it. The ANOC directory records her as elected on 23 February 2004 and re-elected on 4 December 2017 and 4 December 2021; the committee's own site states that she "é Presidente do Comité Olímpico Cabo-verdiano desde 2014", after Franklin Palma from 2006.[4] [1] Both are reported; neither is adopted. Fortes is also vice-president of ANOCA Zone 2.[4]
Which Games does it enter, and what does it organise?
The committee enters Cape Verde at the Olympic Games and the Youth Olympic Games, and through ANOCA at the African Games and the continental programme around them, including the African School Games.[3] [8] The Charter's Rule 27.7.5 right of an NOC to "take part in activities led or patronised by the IOC, including regional Games" is the provision under which those continental entries are made.[8]
Paris 2024 is the benchmark for delegation size: seven athletes in six sports — swimming, athletics, fencing, boxing and judo — reported as the country's largest Olympic representation to that point.[6] At that scale the universality place mechanism is a live part of how a delegation is assembled, which is why the committee singles out merit qualifications in its own history.[1]
The committee reported in 2025 that it plans to build a new sustainable headquarters; this page found no multi-sport games owned by the committee itself.[3]
Which federations are its members?
This page could not retrieve a member-federation register. The committee's site did not return a readable list of affiliated federations, and no count is given here rather than a number carried from a secondary source.[1]
What can be said is what the electoral record implies about the size of the membership: 32 delegates took part in the assembly that re-elected the president in December 2021, which sets the order of magnitude of the voting body without fixing the number of federations.[7] The Charter requires that an NOC's members include "all national federations affiliated to IFs governing Olympic sports" and that member federations "must exercise a specific, real and on-going sports activity".[8]
Cape Verde's presence at the Olympic Games across swimming, athletics, boxing, judo and fencing establishes that the corresponding national federations exist and are affiliated, but that is an inference from entries rather than a membership list and is stated as one.[6]
References
- Comité Olímpico Cabo-verdiano — Olimpismo. Accessed September 2026.
- Olympedia — Cabo Verde (CPV). Accessed September 2026.
- Inforpress (Cape Verde news agency) — Cape Verdean Olympic Committee marks 36 years, 17 July 2025. Accessed September 2026.
- ANOC — NOC directory entry, Comité Olímpico Cabo-verdiano. Accessed September 2026.
- RTC — Atletas recebem bolsa do COC para prepararem para os Jogos Olímpicos de Paris 2024. Accessed September 2026.
- Panapress — Cabo Verde participa com sete atletas nas Olimpiadas Paris 2024. Accessed September 2026.
- RTC — Filomena Fortes mantem-se a frente do COC (electoral assembly, 4 December 2021). Accessed September 2026.
- International Olympic Committee — Olympic Charter, in force as from 30 January 2025, Rules 27 and 28 (PDF). Accessed September 2026.
- Expresso das Ilhas — Filomena Fortes candidata-se a terceiro mandato à frente do Comité Olímpico Cabo-verdiano, 20 November 2025. Accessed September 2026.