Aim. The purpose of the article is to determine the legislative and organizational decisions aimed at improving the mechanism of labor protection of athletes on the basis of analysis of scientific and applied research. Materials and methods. Scientific data in the field of athletes' labor protection, judicial practice, labor, administrative, sports legislation of Russia and foreign countries are analyzed. The article uses general scientific (dialectics, analysis and synthesis, abstraction and concretization) and private-scientific methods of research (formal-legal, technical-legal). Results. The result of the research performed proves the necessity of introducing changes in the current labor legislation in the field of labor protection, in particular, in the rules of exclusion of an athlete from the training process and competitions in case of not passing the training on labor protection and safety rules and not using personal protective equipment. There is a need for changes in the legislation on the protection of citizens’ health in terms of determining the competence of people with non-medical education, especially when giving them a right to provide first aid. Conclusion. The problem of athletes' labor protection should be solved by working in five directions: legislation improvement, organizing coaches' and other sports managers’ activity, preserving psychological and emotional condition of athletes, anti-doping, information and analytical activity.