PICTURED: APA / ROBERT JAEGER
The 20th day of sports on Saturday in the area around Vienna's Ernst-Happel-Stadion is embedded in a series of campaigns to encourage more movement among the population. The corona pandemic caused even more catching up to be done than was already the case before. On (today) Friday the “Long Day of Sports” started in schools and sports clubs. The European Week of Sport has been running from Thursday until next Thursday, September 30th.
As part of the “Long Sports Day”, numerous exercise units took place in schools in the morning, many online due to the safety measures in place. In the afternoon, several sports clubs followed with a performance show in the direction of more health, fun and well-being with sport. Vice Chancellor and Sports Minister Werner Kogler (Greens): “This year the fourth wave of Covid slowed us down a bit, in 2022 we want to really get started with the 'Long Sports Day'.”
This time the “4th day of school sports” was integrated into this initiative, celebrated on Friday morning in the Prater. At the sports facilities of the umbrella organizations ASKÖ, ASVÖ and Sportunion, around 2,500 Viennese schoolchildren could discover a number of new sports. “This networking of organized sport with schools is the foundation for the next big step: the Austria-wide rollout of the daily exercise unit”, said Sport Austria President Hans Niessl.
The sport union also has the ambition to win as many new players as possible for the sport and demands from politicians that school and club sport for minors is guaranteed for the further course of the corona crisis – with corona prevention concepts and contact tracing. “We are still calling for a 'youth sports guarantee'. There must be no further sports lockdown for children and young people in the current corona crisis,” said Sportunion President Peter McDonald.
