On Monday April 28, 2014, Madshus biathlete Ole Einar Bjoerndalen (NOR) spoke to the United Nations during the “Panel for Sport on Development and Peace.”
This is Bjoerndalen’s speech:
Madam Chair, Excellencies, Distinguished delegates, Ladies and gentlemen:
A few days before I went to New York for this meeting, I watched an interview on TV about a soccer player in Premier League. Normally I am not very interested in soccer players and their lives. But this TV-report touched me and opened my eyes. This interview also built a bridge for me between the possibilities of sport and this meeting in United Nations.The soccer-player was Steven Pienaar from South Africa, playing for Everton in England. He told an emotional story about growing up in the slum in Johannesburg.
His childhood was in an area with killing, gang crime and drugs, but Pienaar told gratefully about how soccer saved his life. He told how his trainer believed in him. How the trainer saw his potential, and developed him to be a great soccer player.Instead of a life in slum and crime he got the chance to live his dream in clubs like Ajax, Dortmund, Tottenham and Everton. Pienaar drew a winning ticket.His tears of gratefulness in this interview said more than a thousand words.
For me this was a great inspiration to this meeting in New York, and the work of using sport to make a better world. Not with the goal of creating rich soccer players, but to give children better lives. I was so lucky to grow up on a small farm in Simostranda in Norway. Simostranda is a small place with 350 inhabitants (and twice as many members in the sports club…).
I was also lucky to grow up in a country that has traditionally offered many opportunities to children, youth and people of all ages to access sport and physical activity and enjoy its benefits.
My home place is so small that if you close your eyes for a second, you have driven past…Quite a difference from Johannesburg. The childhood in Simostranda and in country like Norway was my winning ticket. The only crime we knew about was stealing apples from the neighbors. But sport in my childhood was, in a way, similar for me and Steven Pienaar, because sport also helped me to build character.
The same way as Pienaar is grateful to his trainer, I am grateful to mine. This tells me that children need to have trainers with dedication and good values. A trainer is a true role model, and can make a difference in children´s lives.
I have decided to continue my career another two years, but I have already increased my focus on helping children to benefit from sport. I want to see children around the world have fun with sport and develop social skills and healthier lives through sport.I am proud to be a member of the International Olympic Committee, and to come from a country with a strong sport culture and a long tradition in using sport for development in other parts of the world too.The Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee is supporting projects in Asia and Africa, some of them in cooperation with UN agencies.
I know that this audience believes in the power of sport.Please use your influence to encourage more governments’ investment in sport for youths, and especially in underprivileged communities that badly need help.
Thank you.