A group of Olympic athletes is attending the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, but they won’t be competing for medals.

Instead, they will travel to Pyeongchang, South Korea, as Olympic artists in residence, the International Olympic Committee announced today.

The four artists, who have competed in a combined seven Olympic Games, include the Greek-American distance runner Alexi Pappas, the British javelin thrower Roald Bradstock, the Swiss fencer Jean-Blaise Evéquoz and the American biathlete Lanny Barnes.

The modern Olympic Games, in their earliest decades, relied on creative competition. Between 1912 and 1948, the I.O.C. awarded gold, silver and bronze medals to artists in five categories: painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music. The Irish author Oliver St. John Gogarty won a bronze medal in literature at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games. The architect of the Jefferson Memorial, John Russell Pope, won a silver at the 1932 Los Angeles Games.