Toni Innauer
Big names from the local sport are sounding the alarm. Austria, especially the children, exercise too little – an appeal to politicians too.
The pandemic has had Austria firmly under control since March 2020. Sport, apart from top-class sport, is neglected. The sports facilities are closed due to the Corona measures, the club system is largely at a standstill.
Experts are sounding the alarm. They worry about the future of domestic sport and the health of the children. Toni Innauer, Olympic ski jumping champion, former trainer and sports director in the ÖSV, found clear words on ServusTV in “Sport and Talk from Hangar 7”.
Innauer senses a general problem in society: “We have cars, lifts, trams and now also electrified scooters to cope with the last mile . We do everything so as not to move in everyday life.”
He misses a political plan to counteract this development: “We cut off the biological branch in peace and quiet and have to consciously and systematically do something about it. But until the water is not up to our necks, we will not recognize it. Because. Because In day-to-day politics there are apparently more important things. “
Innauer demands quick decisions, because: “Otherwise we don't get a sporting problem that we have fewer world champions, but a health-political and economic problem.”
Austria's former tennis star Alexander Antonitsch shares the same notion: “Sport is at the end of the beneficiaries. Health is the first to benefit from exercise. Children can then absorb more at school too.”
Antonitsch: “I think that children really enjoy moving around when the offer is right and they can do it with their friends. When we have them, they want to continue. We just have to grab them downstairs.”
ÖFB boss Leo Windtner shows what the crisis is triggering in the youth sport: “We have 150,000 young footballers in Austria. And we can feel that in some regions there is 30 percent failure. That is frightening, because it is not a matter of course that a return migration again takes place. “
