Coe rejects London Games cynics

Lord Coe rejects stereotypes of teenagers as hoodies and video game addicts

By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education reporter

Lord Coe says the London Olympic games will leave a positive educational legacy by "changing attitudes" among young people.

The chairman of the 2012 organising committee rejected the stereotyping of young people as "hoodies".

"I don't take the depressing tabloid view of the world that the game is up," said Lord Coe.

The London games will have an accompanying schools programme, based on Olympic themes and values.

Introducing the 2012 plans for education, Lord Coe argued that the games would provide a way of "opening doors" for young people.

Self-esteem

"You can read lengthy and turgid articles about how young people are all losing creativity, because of the internet and PlayStations," he said.

The days are gone when large chunks of young people are going to wander into a building with the word 'sports centre' written above it Lord Coe, chairman of the London 2012 organising committee

But even in playing computer games which simulated sports games they were taking a step in the right direction, he said.

"I don't see a generation out there who are lost or are hoodies, I don't see the world like that, when I go around that's not what I see."

But he said there was a challenge to find the right way to appeal to young people.

"The days are gone when large chunks of young people are going to wander into a building with the word 'sports centre' written above it."

But he says that in his own experience in athletics he had seen the way that sport could help young people, giving them role models and sense of self-esteem.

When he was at the Haringey Athletics Club, he says that the coaches and the club provided a vital sense of stability, including for young people from the Broadwater Farm Estate.

This was something substantial rather than quick-fixes, he said. "We're not in the 10 days to thinner thighs approach."

Torch scuffles

He also spoke of the importance of teachers in inspiring young people - and how a teacher had put him on the path that would lead to winning two Olympic gold medals.

This east London building site will be the Olympic stadium in four years

"It was a geography teacher, called David Jackson, who introduced me to track and field, because he witnessed me running around some rugby pitches in a secondary modern in Sheffield.

"He thought I had a bit of a skill. The fact that I'd been running because I'd been sent off for swearing hadn't quite grabbed him."

Lord Coe also rejected the idea that the image Olympic movement had suffered any long lasting damage from the demonstrations over Tibet during the parading of the Olympic torch for the Beijing Olympics.

"It wasn't a particularly edifying three days, but it hasn't done any lasting damage," he said.

There was a long history of a political background to the Olympics, from Jesse Owens in the Berlin Olympics in 1936 through to the Moscow games in 1980.

Lord Coe said that sport had a good record on bringing together communities and had achieved more by "a country mile" than formal politics.

In the four years to the London Olympics there will be a rolling programme of events for schools and colleges.

Schools will be invited to join a network of Olympic-related events and projects. This will not be limited to sports projects, but will be a wider interpretation of ideas about excellence, fair play and mutual respect.

"The values can be expressed across a huge range of topics," says Nick Fuller, head of education for the 2012 games. He is also keen for schools to share their ideas for how best to use the Olympics as a starting point, whether it is in culture, citizenship, sustainability or enterprise.

Mr Fuller wants to apply these values creatively - such as encouraging more young people to apply to university, perhaps by universities making sports facilities available.

Brenda Bigland, head of Lent Rise primary school in Buckinghamshire, said she had opened an online Olympic chat-room for her pupils, where they could make their own suggestions for ways that the school can mark the games.

Paralympian, Ade Adepitan, said that "as someone who grew up in the East End, I know how much the games can change things for the better".