Sebastian Coe calls on world youth to take up sport

Lord Coe made his remarks while delivering the prestigious Keith Murdoch Oration in Melbourne.

"Today's children live in a world of conflicting messages and competing distractions," he said.

"Their landscape is cluttered. Their path to sport is often obscured."

"When I was growing up, my heroes were two Olympians who lived in my home town. These days young peoples' heroes change from week to week.

"For many, they are not even real people but cartoon or video game figures. Young people in the developed world have a range of what a friend of mine calls SBAs - "Screen Based Activities"- to entertain them, to keep them occupied, to soak up their leisure time: computers, DVDs, game consoles, videos, (and) TVs."

The double Olympic gold medallist said he believed the Olympic movement is uniquely equipped to inspire young people to take to the outdoors.

"Using the undeniably strong forces of the Olympic movement, the London Games, the Commonwealth, I want to build a much stronger global alliance, using Government and Sports organisations, and businesses - to inspire youth to get into sport, to get into recreation to make sure they enjoy it enough to stay into it; to strive to make clear the benefits of such involvement for them and their communities.

Lord Coe said it was also crucial that sport be an inspiration for children in the developing world.

"On the other side of the socio-economic coin, millions of children around the world can't play, can't exercise, because they have neither the resources nor the physical energy to do it," Lord Coe said.

"They are spending all day just surviving, getting perhaps - to the next day. Therein lies another massive challenge obviously, but it is vitally important, for all the reasons outlined above, that when communities have an acceptable overall level of physical and economic well-being, that they have and provide the resources to be able to assist their social and individual development through improved health, which includes sport and recreation."

16 March 2006