Oslo youth conference ‘a big success'

More than 130 representatives from 46 European countries and five countries outside of Europe discussed youth athletics  and ways the sport can attract and retain young people during the first European Athletics Youth Conference held in Oslo, Norway, from 5 to 7 December. 

The conference, entitled ‘Bringing Athletics to New Generations,' drew the largest number of participants ever for a European Athletics educational activity.  In addition to the Europeans present, there were also participants from Jamaica, New Zealand, Singapore, Brazil and Surinam.

'Our sport needs a more unified approach  towards young people and it is important that  European Athletics take a leading role,' said Svein Arne Hansen, Vice President of European Athletics and  President of Norges Fri-idrettsforbund-the Norwegian Athletics Federation, which hosted the conference.

'This weekend we got a chance to hear the ideas of a lot of young coaches, youth programme managers and federation leaders and these will help shape our strategy.  I am very encouraged by the quality of their input and by the enthusiasm of all the participants for the challenge of bringing more and more young people into athletics.'

'All the feedback I have heard says that the conference was a big success.'

The main organisers European Athletics and the Norwegian federation, received additional support from the International Association of Athletics Federations' (IAAF) Regional Development Centre in Moscow.  Among the strong line-up of featured speakers were representatives of the IAAF and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which recently renewed a 2006 Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation with European Athletics.

In his conference introduction, President Hansjörg Wirz presented an overview of the European Athletics strategy to use the values of athletics to engage young people and other target groups in the sport under the slogan ‘Your Sport for Life'.

The keynote address was given by Olympic and European gold medallist Lord Sebastian Coe, who is also a Vice President of the IAAF and the the chairman of the London 2012 Olympic Games Organising Committee.  Coe described changes in youth culture, using the experience of his own children as examples, and said it was critical the sport communicate with young people using new media.

'Without youth, the rest of athletics is meaningless,' he said. 'We, in Europe, need to develop a coherent, co-ordinated and global strategic approach to youth development.'

The eight guest speakers gave presentations on the three conference themes: Engagement & Retention, Talent Identification & Development and Towards a European Strategy for Youth Athletics.  The speakers were:

Prof. Sigmund Loland (Norway)

Curt Hogberg (Sweden)

Britt Graesholt (Norway)

Joerg Peter (Germany)

Vadim Zelichenok (Russia)

Fitz Coleman (Jamaica)

Paul Marriott-Lloyd (UNESCO)

El Hebil Abdelmalek (IAAF)

To download the presentations click the names above.

The programme also included best practice workshops, led by the managers of model youth programmes from around Europe, and small group discussions chaired by young leaders from Norway and the neighboring countries of Sweden and Denmark.

Prior to the official opening of the conference, a special demonstration of the IAAF' Kids' Athletics and Norway's Team Athletics programmes was presented by a group of 40 children from the Oslo area.

In the final presentation, Hansen outlined what he saw as the key elements of European Athletics future strategy for youth and said that he would take the ideas from the conference and the feedback from an online survey of the conference participants to the Development Committee and Council to develop an action plan.

The presentations and reports from the Workshops and the reports from the discussion groupscan be found in the releated documents.