Organizers of Gangwon 2024 have offered a variety of educational and cultural programs to help young athletes share the Olympic values and learn the spirit of sports.
GANGNEUNG, South Korea, Jan. 25 (Xinhua) -- Young athletes will learn such Olympic values as inclusion and peace through their exchanges at the 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympic Games, a chief organizer has said.
"Rather than on grades and competition, the Youth Olympics focus on sharing the values which the Olympics seek, such as inclusion, peace, reconciliation and cooperation, while teenagers around the world interact with each other," Choi Jong-ku, executive president of the organizing committee for Gangwon 2024, said in a recent interview with Xinhua.
To help young athletes share the Olympic values and learn the spirit of sports, the organizers have been offering a variety of educational and cultural programs, such as one-point lessons and talk concerts from Olympians together with cultural and artistic performances.
"I have no doubt that young people of each country can share each other's culture and friendship and be positively influenced through challenges and adventures rather than competing for medals," Choi said.
He said other teenagers participating in the Winter Youth Olympics as audience members would learn the Olympic values by watching their peers challenge themselves beyond their limits on the world stage.
The fourth Winter Youth Olympics kicked off last Friday, bringing together 1,802 athletes from 78 countries and regions to compete in 15 disciplines across seven sports for two weeks.
Hosting the Winter Youth Olympics will be meaningful as it expands the foothold of winter sports that can be loved by future generations, Choi noted.
Venues for the Games had already been used and proven at the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, Gangwon.
"The fact that venues for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics are reused for the 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympics is a good example of the sustainable use after the Olympics," said Choi.
Consecutive major sports events in Asia, from the PyeongChang Winter Olympics to the Tokyo Summer Olympics, the Beijing Winter Olympics, and the 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympics, constituted a sign of sports development in Asia, the chief organizer noted.
"Hosting international sports events in Asia will be an important chance to raise interest and participation in sports and an opportunity to promote sports development," Choi added. ■
