Disadvantaged San Francisco kids headed for Vancouver Olympic Games

[mr.x]

Disadvantaged kids headed for Vancouver Olympic Games


By Jeff Lee, Vancouver Sun
June 5, 2009











Hoping to break the culture of cheating in sports, a U.S.-based foundation is partnering with organizers of the 2010 Olympics to bring 50 disadvantaged youth from San Francisco to the Vancouver Games.

By exposing the young teenagers — many of whom have never been out of their own neighbourhoods — to the best the Olympics can offer, the two organizations are hoping to germinate new seeds in the fight against doping and ethical lapses in judgment.

For one week at the start of the Games, children who have grown up in a world populated by drug-dealers or who live in abusive households will meet Olympic athletes, doctors and other role models. They'll attend events, meet sports heroes, write essays and create art about the messages to which they're being exposed. And when it is all over, the youths will be sent back to their schools to act as future ambassadors spreading a message organizers desperately hope take root on alley basketball courts and in street pickup games of baseball.

"We want them to understand that it's okay to play sports without cheating, without the need to be 'juiced'," Dr. Steven Ungerleider said. "Most of these kids haven't been two miles away from their home. The idea behind the program is not only to give them a very powerful, rich experience with the Olympics but also show them about culture, about ethics in sport and how to play fair."

Ungerleider knows a lot about the subject. A sports psychologist and member of the United States Olympic Committee, he's worked closely with the World Anti-Doping Agency and is the author of Faust's Gold: Inside The East German Doping Machine. The book ended up being used by prosecutors as research material in the Balco drug scandal that ensnared a number of sports celebrities, including track star Marion Jones, football player Bill Romanowski and Major League Baseball's Barry Bonds.

Ungerleider's group, The Foundation for Global Sports Development, works with educators and sports federations in 33 countries to break the cycle of cheating in sports. It also partners with United Nations/UNESCO and other educational agencies on a culture and sports-based ethics program.

Since the 2004 Athens Games, it has taken small groups of at-risk high school students to the Olympics. For Vancouver, the foundation is busing up young students from the Boys and Girls Club of San Francisco. They'll stay at a Baptist church in Richmond. After every Games, the foundation produces a book of the art work and essays that it distributes to schools as educational material. The group will exhibit some of its previous art at Richmond City Hall as part of a larger exhibit of Olympic memorabilia being loaned by the International Olympic Committee's museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

The Vancouver Organizing Committee offered non-monetary support, including assistance of clothing, exhibition space and finding a place for the students to stay.

Overall, the trip will cost about $60,000, Ungerleider said. He doesn't have any tickets yet to events, but hopes to find some.

In return for Vanoc's help, the foundation gave a donation of about $70,000 to help promote some educational exhibits for sports medicine doctors at this week's Canadian Academy of Sports Medicine conference, according to Dr. Jack Taunton, Vanoc's chief medical officer.

Taunton said he likes what Ungerleider's foundation is doing.

"We've got to get kids at a vulnerable age. You've got to educate them. Part of it is drugs," Taunton said. "But part of it is the Olympics is a melting pot."

Teach children to respect other cultures and to play fair and you also teach them to stay away from the dark side of sport, he said.

Dick Pound, Canada's member on the International Olympic Committee, said Ungerleider's program is one of several being used to help turn the tide against cheating in sports.

"I think it really can [work]. There are lots of people doing this, but this one is a terrific idea," said Pound, a former chairman of the World Anti-Doping Agency.

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http://www.vancouversun.com/Entertainmen...ncouver+Olympic+Games/1668033/story.html




I think the kid that drew the second picture would be very surprised that there's a WINTER Olympics. :p

[raggedy13]

Ah, all my favourite Winter Olympic sports... especially football. Some of my best Olympic memories are from watching football. In particular seeing India take down Iceland with a last minute touchdown in Nagano.

I'm going to hell...

[Yume-sama]

How you expect these kids to know what Winter is?

And wow. You'd really think "Dick Pound" would go by Richard.