Gardaland Launches Youth Athletics Promotion Project with Fidal
The magic of Mago Merlino, encounters with dinosaurs, pirate adventures, the acrobatics of dancers, water games shows. Track and field athletics has been hosted by Italy’s most important amusement park. Yesterday (Tuesday, September 25), at Gardaland, Fidal presented a project to promote the “queen of sports” among young people in the compulsory school age groups.
“Our amusement park welcomes nearly three million visitors each year,” explained Gardaland’s president, Enrico Ghinato. “The school world is a privileged reference point for us: an Egyptologist, a biologist, and a medieval historian are available for school groups that visit us. It would be wonderful if, in the future, a city of sport also rose at Gardaland.”
Project presentation
Presented by the federation’s president Gianni Gola, former high jump star Sara Simeoni, head of the Promotion Division of Fidal, and Elio Locatelli, regional coordinator of the International Association of Athletics Federations (Iaaf), the project to promote athletics among young people includes two components: “Gioco-Divertimento-Atletica” (Play-Fun-Athletics) for kindergartens and elementary schools, and “Kids Athletics” for middle schools.
These are playful-motor exercises that, starting from basic athletics movements (running, jumping, throwing) and using appropriate equipment, leave room for teacher intervention and students’ free interpretation. School entry will begin at the end of this year and the start of 2002.
Impact and objectives of the project
“Engagement from the school sector with our proposals is increasingly challenging; I wonder if the message that athletics sends to young people is still relevant,” said the federation president, Gola. “We are proud to be the first national federation to participate in a project that will be exported to the five continents. Dialogue with schools can restart on new foundations: peripheral authorities and clubs, which have the fundamental role of connecting with local realities, will have new certainties.”
With “Gioco-Divertimento-Atletica” and “Kids Athletics,” imagination is taking charge. “Our young people are not very used to movement,” said Sara Simeoni. “We want to be a thorn in the side of those who oppose motor activity. This project does not emulate champion athletics: it is play, a way to socialize and unleash the creativity of kids. In a confined space, more than a hundred youths can be involved, moving in groups and engaged simultaneously in activities.”
International experiences and future projects
“Gioco-Divertimento-Atletica” and “Kids Athletics” have already had an international debut. “We took a hundred students from a peripheral school in Dakar, Senegal,” explained the representative of the International Federation, Elio Locatelli. “We brought them to a parking lot and let them play for an hour and a half. It was a success. There, we realized that the project could work. Its development wasn’t easy, but now we are ready to export the initiative to the over 200 countries affiliated with the Iaaf.”
