Taking action to make sport and healthy lifestyles an integral part of young people’s lives is perhaps more important today than it has ever been. The Olympic Movement has a responsibility to engage with more young people: to turn them away from sedentary lifestyles and towards sport through more attractive, more open and more universal access to participation.
Former IOC President Jacques Rogge recognised this brilliantly when he formally announced the plans for the Youth Olympic Games at the 119th IOC Session in Guatemala in 2007. Seven years on, and with the second edition of the Games having just started in Nanjing, we can be happy with what we have achieved – but there is still much to be done.
The Youth Olympic Games provides a platform for young athletes to showcase their exceptional talents. More than that, it gives them a global stage to inspire their peers and stimulate change in how young people consume and participate in sport. Through social media, the Youth Olympic Games can connect with hundreds of millions of young people around the globe, motivating them to fulfil their potential and educating them in the Olympic values. After all, education and culture are a fundamental part of the Games and help engender understanding, respect and friendship.
But as the Olympic Agenda 2020 identifies, our focus in the Olympic Movement must go beyond these major events which capture the world’s attention for a fortnight: Olympism must be present in the minds of the public – and relevant in the lives of our young people – 365 days a year. The Youth Olympic Games can be a powerful platform, but it should just be one of many routes to sport and health that the Olympic Movement offers to young people and this is an area which needs urgent consideration.
I believe it is a challenge the Olympic Movement is confronting with great energy, under the leadership of the IOC. The IOC’s Youth Olympic Games Working Group and the Olympism in Action Including Youth Strategy Working Group have been established to address this critical issue and I look forward to seeing the innovations they propose. There is no time to waste if we are to connect with this and future generations.
At ANOC, we are looking to the future too with our own process of reform. As an organisation responsible for protecting and promoting the interests of 204 NOCs around the world we have a huge potential reach. We are trying to harness that potential through the ANOC Youth Working Group. Under Sebastian Coe’s experienced leadership we have placed the Working Group in the hands of young people. For who has a better understanding of how young people think, what challenges they face and what motivates them than young people themselves? We want them to bring their enthusiasm, passion and energy to their ideas.
Nowhere was the passion and vibrancy of youth made clearer to me than last year when I took a tour of the Athlete’s Village in Nanjing for the Asian Youth Games. Speaking to athletes and volunteers I saw how much joy, happiness and opportunity sport brought them – not just through competition but through its power to unite different cultures.
We are very proud in Asia to have hosted the first two editions of the Youth Olympic Games and I have no doubt that Nanjing will build on the success of last year’s Asian Youth Games to host a truly unforgettable Youth Olympic Games.
To all the young athletes from all the participating NOCs I wish you the very best of luck. Enjoy it!
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