Despite the worrying rise in infections in Japan, the absence of spectators, the restrictions on the intercultural intermingling that usually defines the Olympic spirit, and so many other challenges, the recently concluded 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo demonstrated for the entire world to see the joyous value of international sports. It was so clear from the faces of the athletes and coaches in the Opening Ceremonies that they wanted to be there. There were so many electrifying performances, so many heartfelt demonstrations of respect and friendship among athletes from different countries. It was not just the decathlon and heptathlon, that always demonstrate scenes of cross-cultural solidarity through sports. Virtually every event produced similar displays. In the men’s high jump, Mutaz Essa Barshim of Kuwait and Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy agreed to share the gold medal. Ninety three of the 205 participating National Olympic Committees (NOCs) came away with medals, the broadest representation on the podium in Olympic history. Once again, a Refugee Olympic Team, with 29 Athlete Refugees from eleven countries living and training in 13 host countries competed with distinction. Many of these achievements were assisted by scholarships and grants from the International Olympic Committee’s Olympic Solidarity Programme.

Clearly, this year’s Olympics and Paralympics – and similar high profile sporting events elsewhere – brought cherished moments of inspiration, internationalism, and human achievement to cheer us up during the ongoing pandemic, as well as the ravages of climate change and the increasing xenophobia and world tensions.

Sports helped people address the risks and challenges of COVID-19 in other important ways as well. For those who could be physically active, sports enabled participants to strengthen resilience and physical and mental health. In some cities, governments closed streets and opened new bike lanes to enable physically distanced walking, running and cycling; sports organisations contributed in many innovative ways – by communicating and supporting public health guidelines, working with public health experts to develop safe “return to play” guidelines, creating on-line programming appropriate to restricted environments, distributing meals to school children who would otherwise go hungry, and making facilities available for emergency hospitals, medical storage, testing and vaccinations, as well as shelters, food banks and voting stations. Professional athletes in some countries stepped up to pay salaries for cleaners and other minimum wage workers who were laid off and made donations to front-line charities.¹

But the overall picture is not encouraging. Whether it’s first-world countries like Canada or impoverished states in the Global South, already dangerously low participation rates have fallen even further. While the media have reported on every challenge and pivot faced by their business partners in corporate sports, they have been largely silent about the impact upon school and community sports and sport for development. In those sectors, closed facilities, plummeting revenues, staff layoffs and social distancing requirements have sharply reduced, even eliminated physical education and co-curricular sport and many forms of adult fitness.

A March 2021 report by the Jump Start Canadian Tire Foundation in Canada found that three in ten Canadian sports organisations are temporarily or indefinitely closed, six in ten are struggling to provide modified programming, and one-third are bankrupt. 69% of surveyed parents said that their children were already showing signs of being less physically fit because of the pandemic.² And we must remember that in Canada, organised sport is largely a middle –and upper-class practice, where “pay for play” requirements exclude the poor. Those who have already been disproportionately inactive – girls and women, the poor, BIPOC, and persons with disabilities – have suffered the most.

A July 2021 study of Toronto youth found that alongside a slight increase in participation in individual activities like running, strength training or conditioning, there were large declines in team and facility-based sports such as soccer, basketball, hockey, swimming, and baseball.³

As it has in other areas of society, notably health and health care, the pandemic has exposed widespread and harmful inequalities in access to sport and physical activity, with the resulting loss of resilience, mental health, and self-mastery to which they contribute. The NGO Canadian Women and Sport found that one in four girls who once participated in sports are not committed to returning.4

These are Canadian data, but they are similar to findings by the Commonwealth and the United Nations.⁵

During a crisis of worldwide contagion, it is easy to forget that the world’s most serious health challenge is non-communicable diseases like diabetes, coronary heart conditions, stroke, hypertension, and several forms of cancer, including breast and colon cancer. According to the World Health Organization, NCDs kill more than 41 million people a year, more than 71% of all deaths globally. It is estimated that sport and physical activity can reduce that risk by 20-30% and avert up to five million deaths a year.⁶

In this paper, I will briefly outline the significance and value of sport and physical activity. Most of us take the benefits of sport for granted, but as we address the challenges of COVID and post-COVID, it is important to remember that the benefits of sport are not automatic but require careful planning, investment, and leadership.

Secondly, I will address the major tasks we must carry out as we learn to live with the pandemic. Thirdly, I will make recommendations for each and every one of us and the Olympic Movement.

The significance of sport and physical activity

It is impossible to explain adequately the significance of sport and physical activity to individuals and their families and communities in a short presentation of this kind. There is virtually no aspect of modern societies, from the economic and political spheres, communications and transportation, urban design and schooling to health and well-being that is not affected in some way by sport. So let me focus on the benefits of participation to individuals and societies and think about what is needed to address COVID.

For individuals, especially children and youth, sports can provide enriching opportunities for healthy growth and development, and learning about self and society. Most of us know this from direct experience, and the research clearly supports this. The major findings are that:

• Regular participation enhances physical health, especially among children, youth, girls and women, and may decrease the likelihood of unhealthy practices, such as drug use and unsafe sex.

• It may positively affect self-esteem, self-worth, social responsibility, and empathy, especially that of girls and women.

• It may enhance social inclusion in schools, communities, and post-conflict societies, especially for girls and women, Indigenous People, racialized minorities, and people with disabilities, and is one of the most effective ways to engage those who are unreachable by other strategies. It can build intergenerational networks.

• It can enhance school retention and academic achievement.

• The participation of girls and women in sport and physical activity offers an opportunity for successful challenges to traditional and oppressive gender relations.⁷

But these benefits are not automatic. The research cautions that they appear to be an indirect outcome of the context and social interaction that is possible in sport rather than a direct consequence of participation. In other words, sport may be a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient to ensure effective development. As the shocking recent revelations about maltreatment and sexual abuse in sports underline, it is not enough to replace opportunities lost to the pandemic, and add many more, we must insist on safe and healthy sport.

From my own research and leadership, I feel that participants

• Must feel it is ‘their programme’, and have genuine access, including equipment and transportation.

• Must feel safe, valued, socially connected, morally and economically supported, personally and politically empowered; and hopeful about the future, i.e. there needs to be a supportive social context.

• The skills and enthusiasm of trained, committed administrators, coaches and volunteers is the key.

• To be successful, sport programmes should be linked to other activities in the community, such as education, intentionally planned to realise specific developmental goals.

• Programmes must be sustained to have a lasting impact, with ongoing monitoring and evaluation, with participants involved.

It is instructive that the United Nations sees sport and physical activity as contributing to more inclusive, sustainable, and less divisive societies after COVID. In its strategy document for ‘building back better’, the UN links sport and physical education to ten of its 17 Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs. The UN established the SDGs in 2015 to provide a blueprint for a more equitable, sustainable world by 2030. While there has been debate about the specifics and the means of implementation, there is widespread consensus that the SDGs constitute a worthwhile framework for public policy and investment. The question now is how to renew the pursuit of the goals after COVID. The UN signals out sport and physical activity as contributors to

3. Good health and well-being

4. Quality education

5. Gender equality

8. Decent work and economic growth

10. Reduced inequalities

11. Sustainable cities and communities

12. Responsible production and consumption

13. Climate action

16. Peace, justice, and strong institutions

17. Partnerships for the goals

Sport has enormous social significance. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres has written,

Sport has often helped to create spaces for dialogue, advance gender equality, promote social inclusion and tackle discrimination against vulnerable groups. It has played this role at all levels of society, from the smallest communities to the global village. It has provided avenues for improving individual health and community wellbeing. We continue to count on sport to provide this space.⁸

Living with COVID

Few countries and sports organisations were prepared for COVID. As the virus mutates into new waves, and the distribution and administration of vaccines create bitter international and national politics, we continue to face unprecedented circumstances and challenges. At all levels, from the community swimming pool to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, we have learned to safeguard facilities and activities and conduct major games without significant health risks. But it has not come without tremendous financial cost, restrictions upon participation (in my neighborhood pool, swimmers are limited to one person a lane) and the loss of treasured customs, such as sitting in a crowded stadium to cheer for your favourite team. The lockdowns necessitated by the pandemic had the effect of denying many more people the resiliency and physical and mental health strengths gained from physical activity, further exacerbating social tensions, and disproportionally depriving the poor and the most marginal members of our societies. With the success of the Olympics, Paralympics, and many professional sports events, with their “business as usual” mass media coverage, it might seem that sports “are doing OK”. But the reality is that the world faces a worsening crisis of physical inactivity.

I do not see the challenges presented by COVID disappearing anytime soon. We must learn to live with them, and find new ways to create fairer, more equitable societies, especially in the provision of sport and physical activity.

To do this, the sports community must

1. Continue to work with public health officials to help safeguard society, and to ensure safe conditions in sport and physical activity. That means insisting that all participants and spectators are fully vaccinated, assisting with the distribution of vaccinations and deploying the most influential sports leaders to counter resistance to the vaccines. It also means continuing to revise “return to play” guidelines as research and conditions suggest. In public planning for any further “waves” of COVID, sport planners should be considered essential to any crisis response team.

2. Campaign vigorously for the recognition of sport for all as an essential element of population health, and set clear targets for increased participation, with appropriate resources. Some of these resources must be drawn from national health budgets, but some requires a redistribution within sports, from high performance to sport for all.

3. Ensure that the public space innovations introduced in urban areas during COVID-19, such as the street closures and additional bike lanes that have enabled safe walking, running, and cycling, are made permanent.

4. Ensure that all future policies, investments, and programmes are developed with an intersectional equity lens.

5. Step up campaigns against racism, homophobia, and other hatreds in sports.

6. Redouble our efforts to eradicate the maltreatment, abuse, and sexual harassment of all participants in sports, and where they do not exist, create independent mechanisms where those who feel that they have been mistreated can bring forth complaints with the confidence that they will be treated seriously and confidentially.

7. Step up the monitoring and evaluation of sports participation and the reach, inclusion, and effectiveness of programming. It is crucial to begin to collect comprehensive, national data on sport and physical activity participation, including by social class, race, ethnicity, gender, age and disability. This is aligned with Action 2 of the Kazan Action Plan developed by the world’s sports ministers in 2017.⁹ It focuses on developing ‘common indicators to measure the contribution of physical education, physical activity and sport to prioritized SDGs and targets.

8. Work with public health officials to affect a safe return to spectator sports at both the professional and community levels, with every spectator player and coach fully vaccinated. The loss of the communal experience of watching sports together has been one of the greatest tragedies of the pandemic.

What can the Olympic Movement do?

All of us, as sports leaders, students, teachers, and researchers, have an obligation to help stop the spread of the virus and contribute to building sport back more inclusive. Prior to the Olympics, IOC president Bach called upon Olympic and Paralympic athletes “to lead by example and accept the vaccine”. The IOC arranged with Pfizer, BioNTech, and the Chinese government to distribute vaccines to Olympic and Paralympic participants.10

It goes without saying that for those who have not already been fully vaccinated, I strongly recommend that they do so. All of us should support the public health arguments for taking the vaccine, and sports organisations can help with its distribution and administration. We should also provide leadership in supporting other public health messaging, such as masking, hand-washing and physical distancing where circumstances require. These are basic conditions for the resumption of safe and healthy sport.

The IOC and the IOA should now insist upon full vaccinations as a condition of participation in in-person programmes. Working with the World Health Organization (WHO), the IOC should continue to assist with the delivery of vaccinations to participants in its various programmes, especially the forthcoming Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing. In those countries where the vaccine is not readily available, NOCs should work with the IOC to ensure that all representatives travelling abroad are vaccinated, and with public health authorities to support national priorities.

I also believe that the Olympic Movement must do a much better job to bring about sports for all as integral to what it actually does. The Olympic Charter gives eloquent, powerful support for “the practice of sport as a human right” and “the place of sport in the harmonious development of humankind” and requires the IOC “to encourage and support the development of sport for all”. Yet in their actions and investments, the IOC, NOCs, IFs and most sports organisations are preoccupied with getting those who are already in the sports system to the podium. They rarely have appetite or capacity to address the alarming drop in participation in most countries, the significant, complex barriers most people face to participate and the tremendous inequalities involved. Consequently, during the pandemic, many people have not had access to the resilience and good physical and mental health that sport and physical activity affords.

Rhetoric is not enough. It won’t be easy. It will require new relationships with national and international governments. But the Olympic Movement must give genuine, practical commitment to realising sport for all as a key component of worldwide population health.

‍

‍

1. Peter Donnelly, Simon Darnell and Bruce Kidd, “The Implications of COVID-19 for Community Sport and Sport for Development”, Commonwealth Moves, 2020, https://thecommonwealth.org/sites/default/files/inline/D17145_Sport_Covid_Series_PaperOne_V5.pdf, accessed 31 August 2021.

2. Canadian Tire Jumpstart Foundation, Jumpstart State of Sport Report (March 2021), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59a5b44ed7bdce6f285fe67b/t/6074a8bfbba2f62bb780a882/1618258129681/Jumpstart_State_of_Sport_Report_March_2021.pdf, accessed 31 August 2021.

3. MLSE Foundation, Change the Game Research: A study focused on sport access, engagement, and equity factors in the wake of the pandemic, (July 2021), 60f5a049b617f857b0d14be4_Change The Game Research_FINAL.pdf (website-files.com), accessed 31 August 2021.

4. Canadian Women and Sport, COVID Alert: Pandemic Impact on Girls in Sport (July 2021), https://womenandsport.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/COVID-Alert-final-English-July-2021.pdf, accessed 31 August 2021.

5. E.g. Commonwealth Secretariat, Policy Analysis Tool for Community Sport and Sport for Development in Response to COVID-19 (2021), https://thecommonwealth. org/sites/default/files/inline/Commonwealth%20Moves_COVID-19%20%26%20 Community%20Sport%20Policy%20Analysis%20Toolkit.pdf, accessed 31 August 2021; and United Nations, Recovering Better: Sport for Development and Peace: Reopening, Recovery and Resilience Post COVID-19 (22 December 2020), Final-SDP recovering-better.pdf (un.org), accessed 31 August 2021.

6. World Health Organization, “Fact Sheet on Physical Activity”, https://www.who.int/ news-room/fact-sheets/detail/physical-activity, accessed 31 August 2021.

7. Bruce Kidd and Peter Donnelly, ‘Literature Reviews on Sport for Development and Peace’, International Working Group, Sport for Development and Peace (18 October 2007); Oliver Dudfield, Strengthening Sport for Development and Peace: National policies and strategies (London: Commonwealth Secretariat, 2014); and Holly Collison, Simon Darnell, Richard Giulianott, and David Howe (Eds), Routledge Handbook of Sport for Development and Peace (New York, Routledge, 2019).

8. United Nations, Recovering Better.

9. 6th International Conference of Ministers and Senior Officials Responsible for Physical Education and Sport, Kazan Action Plan, UNESCO 2017, https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000252725, accessed 1 September 2021.

10. Associated Press, “Pfizer and BioNTech will donate vaccines to Olympic athletes”, 6 May 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/olympic-vaccines-athletes-donation-pfizer-biontech-1.6015996, accessed 1 September 2021.

‍

KIDD Bruce, "The significance and value of sports in the COVID era", in:K. Georgiadis(ed.), Olympic Games and the Pandemic:Opportunities, Challenges and Changes , 61th International Session for Young Participants (Ancient Olympia, 17-23/09/2021), International OlympicAcademy, Athens, 2022, pp.31-39.

‍

‍

‍