POSTED: January 3rd 2011
InDepth
Moynihan stresses faith in new strategy to 'transform school sport'
KEIR RADNEDGE / Sports Features Communications
LONDON, Jan 03: Concern over the school/sport relationship has been picked up by British Olympic Association chairman Colin Moynihan in his latest reflections on the year just passed and the year ahead.
Moynihan noted a commitment from Jeremy Hunt, the new Secretary of State for Culture, to introduce competitive school sport into every primary and secondary school in England.
Amid controversy over the partial dismantling of the Schools Sports Partership, Moynihan insisted that the government’s new strategy “will transform school sport in England.”
This was essential because, he said: “Despite 13 years of lottery money we are still at the embarrassing and unacceptable position in which more than 50pc of our Olympic medallists come from just the seven per cent of our schoolchildren who attend private schools.
“This welcome central government initiative must be about both participation and righting the wrong where 10s of thousands of schoolchildren have neither their sporting talent identified in the state sector, nor are provided with a performance pathway to take their talent through to local, regional and national representation.”
However Moynihan regretted that the proposed School Olympics, which were to have taken the place of the UK School Games, will now not include the ‘O’ word since it will be run by the Youth Sport Trust.
He said: “The president of the IOC [Jacques Rogge] has emphasised that the use of the ‘Olympic brand’ must not compromise neither the BOA’s autonomy nor its ability to market the commercial rights for Team GB in the future, and we will work with the IOC to ensure its requests are met.”
However Moynihan claimed that the original ‘Olympic concept’ had not been written off entirely.
He said: “The BOA will evaluate establishing its own Commission on Youth and Sport for All which could review progress on Britain’s Competitive School Sport Policy, its organisation, governance and value for money and against this background consider whether to launch a British Olympic Association School Games in 2013 and beyond.”
Keywords · BOA · London 2012 · Moynihan
For more information contact:
Laura Walden ()
All original materials contained in this section are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Sports Features Communications, Inc the owner of that content. It is prohibited to alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
