Sport - A hidden social worker to help young people and society

"To me, sport is the 'hidden social worker' in the community. It’s also a great educator and motivator," Coe said in the key note final address to the two-day inaugural Legacy Lives 2007 conference, attended by delegates and representatives from several of the world’s peak sports governing bodies, event organisations and federations.

Coe, a dual Olympian, said London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games organisers planned to use the Games as a catalyst to secure a wide-range of social, economic and environmental benefits to help create stronger and healthier communities.

"The new London Olympic Park and venues will be built in one of the most under developed areas of the UK, creating thousands of new jobs, homes as well as new community facilities, transport links and greener forms of energy. This will transform lives and the future of surrounding communities," Coe said.

In an age and culture of 24-hour entertainment, instant fame, video games and increasing obesity amongst young people, Coe said the values and ideals of Olympic Movement were more relevant than ever before for young people and society.

"The Olympic Movement transcends sport. It creates a unique link between education, culture, the environment and sport which can act as a catalyst for change on and off the sporting field," Coe said.

Coe said it was important that the benefits of staging the Games were made as accessible as possible to a wide range of cities and continents including Africa.

"I hope that London 2012 can bring the prospect of the Games in Africa a step closer," he said. "We plan to use evolving technology and knowledge to develop an Olympic stadium for the future; one that consists predominantly of temporary overlay, infrastructure, energy, and facilities and can be scaled back after the Games into a much smaller permanent core venue designed around the long-term needs of host city communities. This will help to render the construction of costly, permanent and underused stadia a thing of the past."

Coe said it was also vital that more efforts were made to make sport more accessible to millions of children around the world who live in desperate poverty or in war zones and have neither the resources nor physical energy to play sport.

"Using the force of the Olympic movement in combination with other international and national bodies and organisations, we can also try to build up a coalition of government and sports organisations, and businesses to create more opportunities for more young people and their communities to experience the benefits of sport and exercise," he said.

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