Owen Lewis, Head of Elite Sport Partnerships and Systems at
Sport Wales responds to the ‘Norway Model’ to sport.
A country of 5 million people that wins 39 medals at the
Olympics and has 93% of children growing up enjoying organised sport. It sounds
miraculous.
39 medals at the Olympics and 93% of children playing
despite (or is it because of) a rigid ban on national championships before the
age of 13.
I’m sure, like many, you’ll have been inspired by the storycoming out of Norway recently.
“Imagine a society like that.”
Well, here’s the challenge. Let’s stop just imagining it and
start enabling it.
I’d encourage anyone whose interest was piqued by
the article to get to the source and read the Children’s
rights in sport document. It’s a fascinating, short paper which somehow
manages to be both liberating and prescriptive at the same time. The rights and
provisions are a classic 'carrot and stick' balance – and it seems to be working
for Norway.
But, of course, you can’t pick up the Norway model, plonk it in Wales and expect the same success. It doesn’t work like that. Wales needs to
find its own way.
Here at Sport Wales we talk about the importance of putting
the person at the centre of what we provide; of setting young people up for a
great start in life; of making sure that sporting opportunities are available
to everyone.
If we follow that thinking through, maybe we’ll stop having to
imagine a society like Norway’s.
But how often do we really think about those
things in the sporting opportunities we provide for our kids? And if we know
that existing opportunities are not providing what they should be, are we brave
enough to change them?
The first line of the Norwegian document reads ‘children are
engaged in sport because they enjoy it.’ Who’d argue with that? The main
prerequisite of a successful senior athlete is that they are still playing the
sport.
Wales is a small country too. How many kids are we prepared to lose from
sport because we didn’t make it enjoyable enough?
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