Health and well-being is taking on a greater significance in multiple societies and the European Athletics Development Commission has recognised this by putting this area high on its agenda not just for high performance, but for the wider benefit of the sport, and its participants and to attract newcomers.
Working group created
A working group has been established to set a strategy in collaboration with Member Federations and the subject will be discussed among the European Athletics Development Commission which is meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland on 22-23 August.
Furthermore, there will be a health and well-being workshop at the European Athletics Convention, the list of speakers and subject matter has been confirmed revealing an array of international expertise at the event in Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia on 24-26 October.
Health and well-being also heavily featured at the European Athletics Future Leaders Forum, which took place in parallel with the Roma 2024 European Athletics Championships on 7-12 June.
Health and well-being at forefont at Future Leaders Forum
Development Commission member Scott Grace is National Technical Lead for Youth & Resource Development at England Athletics and leading on developing the health and wellbeing strategy, he presented on the subject at the Future Leaders Forum.
“We’re looking at not just the physical well-being, it's the whole person,” said Grace. “Mental health and social environment play an equally important role, and that goes for all the age groups.
“Building young people with that right mindset of being physically active throughout their whole life will help with their mental well-being, and hopefully with their health as well.”
"The exciting thing about our sport, athletics, is it underpins pretty much every other sport," he said. “It's that opportunity to say, ‘I might not be able to win races all the time, but I can always better myself.’ I always think that athletics is a great vehicle for helping people to get back being physically active.”
A role within high performance
Similarly, with a stronger emphasis on health and well-being can also support high performance,” says Grace.
"The bigger the foundation, the more chance you've got people to rise," he said. “It’s about listening to what they want to get from the sport and making sure we meet their needs. Because they might be hugely talented, but as they move through the sport, it might not be meeting all their needs.”
He also stresses how important attention to mental health is for building resilience among young athletes. “If we can make sure that they can take the negative times, the bad times, and build from that, then we're more likely to see some of our superstars down the sport longer,” he says.
Fun as a family
But even looking beyond professional level, Grace recognised the importance of engaging the younger generation in athletics rather than more sedate activities such as gaming,
"If you have families that are active, then kids later on are more likely to go outside too ," he said. “It’s sometimes really easy, for kids just to sit down in front of the TV. So, making sure that we engage parents and show them how they can do fun things as a family is really important.”
Schools also have a crucial role to play, says Grace in encouraging more activities and setting the right mindset for young people.
“If there's a school initiative, that's encouraging children to do more activities, whether it's the daily mile or more physical education, both set the right mindset for a young person, so they want to be more active. For me, that's key.”
Speaking directly to the 70 participants at the Future Leaders Forum, Grace stressed that they can all play an important role in fostering health and well-being among their home countries across all Europe.
“It’s a great group of young people that can see the importance of all the aspects of health and well-being,” he said.
“They're very close to the generation of young people and there's lots of things that they could share,” he said. “For me it's about showing that if we focus on health and well-being, we will still impact on the performance end, but it impacts on so much more.”
Annika Saunus and Chris Broadbent for European Athletics