$Unique_ID{COW03469} $Pretitle{441} $Title{Sweden Sport and Exercise} $Subtitle{} $Author{Swedish Institute} $Affiliation{Swedish Embassy, Washington DC} $Subject{sports sport swedish sporting sweden activities national welfare physical exercise} $Date{1990} $Log{} Country: Sweden Book: Fact Sheets on Sweden Author: Swedish Institute Affiliation: Swedish Embassy, Washington DC Date: 1990 Sport and Exercise Competitive Sport Competitive sport is one of the three main programmes into which the activities of the Swedish sporting movement are divided (the other two being junior sport and mass sport) and comprises the activities where achievement is the main consideration. This programme in turn can be subdivided into elite sports and other competitive sports. Competitive sports are immensely important, for example economically and as a way of stimulating leisure activity. Sport in Sweden-and probably throughout the world-has traditionally been dominated by men. This is still the case, but women's sports are rapidly growing in number. Sweden is one of the world's five leading ice hockey nations, and ice hockey is a very popular sport which is practised all over the country. Even so, women footballers in Sweden outnumber male ice hockey players, a comparison which serves to highlight the rapid pace of development in this sector. Nationwide "Equal Sporting Opportunities" campaigns are being conducted so as to achieve still further improvements in sporting opportunities for women. Sport is international and therefore a useful aid in the acclimatisation of immigrants. A special action programme has been adopted and great efforts are being made to give immigrants the opportunity of participating in sports in their adopted country. Great efforts are also being made with respect to sports for the disabled. All experience indicates that this type of sport is tremendously important. And the efforts made have produced results. There are large numbers of disabled sportsmen and sportswomen, and Sweden has done well in international competitions. In 1988, Swedish competitors won 18 medals at the Olympic Winter Games for the Disabled in Canada and 118 medals at the Summer Games in South Korea. Elite Sports Elite sports are mostly practised at senior level. They thus constitute a very small proportion of total sporting activities, which, as a whole, mainly involve children and young persons. A recent survey has shown that about 2,500 Swedes take part in national team events in the course of a year. All but three specialized sports federations have national teams and take part in international competitions. If one adds the estimated number of sportsmen and sportswomen who compete in Sweden at national championship level, one reaches a total of about 5,000. Together with the other Nordic countries, Sweden ranks traditionally as one of the world's prominent sporting nations. Sweden took part in the very first "modern" Olympic Games, in Athens in 1896. Stockholm hosted the Olympic Summer Games in 1912 and was also the venue for the equestrian events of the 1956 Olympics (other events being arranged in Melbourne, Australia). By 1988, Sweden had gained a total of 491 Olympic medals, including 159 gold. In 1988, Sweden gained six medals at the Winter Olympics in Calgary (Canada) and eleven in the Summer Olympics in Seoul (South Korea). In addition to their Olympic successes, the Swedes have scored a very large number of world and European championship victories in a wide variety of sporting events. During the past decade, Swedish sportsmen like Bjorn Borg and Mats Wilander in tennis, Ingemar Stenmark in alpine skiing, and Patrick Sjoberg in high jumping have ranked as world leaders. Sweden has been very successful in major world sports such as football, tennis and table tennis. In 1989, for example, the Swedish team became world champions in table tennis, while J-O Waldner won the men's singles. Many foreign observers have been surprised that Sweden, with its population of only 8.5 million, has been able to do so well in international competition. There are of course many reasons for Sweden's success. Sporting interest is aroused at an early age in most Swedish children and youngsters and has been stimulated in recent years by the successes of such stars as the ones mentioned above. The Swedish sports movement is well-organized and takes good care of the young people coming to it. They are coached by hundreds of thousands of well-trained and very knowledgeable leaders, most of whom are unpaid. There are also plenty of facilities for intensive and systematic training. During the 1970s and 1980s, opportunities have been created for budding elite sportsmen and sportswomen to attend "sports high schools" where upper secondary schooling can be combined with elite sport training. Swedish sport today involves both professionals, semi-professionals and pure amateurs. The last mentioned constitute the absolute majority. The professionals are very few in number, for example in tennis. Semi-professionals are confined to the top football and ice hockey divisions. Elite sports, of course, are not spared their problems. Perhaps the biggest of these problems in recent years has been the use of prohibited drugs. This applies to the whole of international sport, and not just to Sweden. The Swedish sports movement is now conducting an ambitious anti-doping campaign to eliminate drugs altogether from the Swedish sporting scene. JUNIOR SPORT Sport is a very common leisure occupation among children and young persons, boys especially, and constitutes by far the largest youth organization. Many of the superstars of Swedish sport started when they were very young. Their great successes were eventually achieved through a combination of great talent and immensely hard training. Many children try to follow in their footsteps, and sometimes this has resulted in premature specialization. Associations and leaders take the view that children must look on sport as a game and ought preferably to go in for several different sports to start with. There is time enough for specialization when they get into their teens. Unfortunately, though, there are cases of children committing themselves far too seriously to a sporting career, often with eager encouragement from their parents. They can also be enticed to drop their studies in order to try and make a living of their hobby, a policy which every coach with a sense of responsibility will warn them against. One reason for youth activities being so well-developed in Sweden is the large body of unpaid coaches. There are about 450,000 of them altogether, and roughly half of them attend regular coach training every year. In their efforts to reach out to children, they co-operate closely with both parents and schools. A great deal of work is devoted to educating the children in their social roles by teaching them the importance of good comradeship and respect for rules, opponents and referees-the importance of fair play. They are warned of the dangers of alcohol, smoking and drugs, and every effort is made to encourage good living habits. Sporting activities in compulsory and upper secondary schools are also very extensive. Timetabled sport occupies two to three periods per week in compulsory schools and between one and three periods per week in upper secondary schools, and they provide all-round training in a large number of sporting events. In addition to timetabled instruction, there is also a great deal of voluntary school sporting activity. There are today some 1,800 school sports clubs with about 700,000 members. These activities are broadly concerned with training and coach education, as well as with competitions at local, regional and national levels. Activities are coordinated by 23 regional school sports associations and at national level by the Swedish School Sports Federation. MASS SPORTS Participation in mass sports is a very old tradition. The Swedes have always been interested in safeguarding their health and going off into the country to get exercise. Jogging was well-known in Sweden long before it developed into a worldwide trend a decade or so ago. The physical welfare idea has come to play an increasingly prominent part in mass sports during recent years. With about 39,000 sports clubs (including 20,000 inter-company sports clubs) all over the country, there are ample opportunities for everybody wishing to do so to go in for sport and exercise on an organized basis. But there are many people who prefer to take their exercise on their own or in the company of friends. This is particularly true of elderly persons who have previously been active members of the sporting movement. Once the intensive period of competitions is over, they scale down their activities but still wish to go on taking regular exercise. Inter-company sports, operating as they do on an activation or outreach basis, have an important part to play. Efforts are made in this way to activate people for sport and exercise at their places of work as well as near their homes. The aim is for as many people as possible to be able to go in for participant sports in their neighborhood, at a convenient distance from work and home. The steady growth of interest in physical activity is reflected by the mass arrangements which are growing more and more popular every year. These include the "classic" events: the Vasa Race (skiing, 85 km), the Vattern Circuit (a two-day bicycle race covering 300 km), the Vansbro Swim (river swimming, 3 km) and the Lidingo Race (cross-country running, 30 km). There are also numerous marathon events, headed by the Stockholm Marathon. The participants are seldom aiming for top positions; they simply take part in order to test their capacity. The fitness aspect has acquired greater prominence in most sporting events, for example orienteering, swimming, gymnastics and canoeing. Most fitness enthusiasts, however, take their open-air activity more steadily. During the summer they can follow trails marked with cairns. This is traditional practice in mountain regions, but in recent years attractive hiking trails have also been laid out by numerous municipalities in the south of Sweden. Sweden, with its numerous lakes, offers plentiful opportunities for sailing and canoeing. In many places there are canoeing centres where craft can be inexpensively rented. Fishing is a widespread leisure pursuit, from the mountain lakes to the long coastline and its archipelagos. Skiing has become a real mass sport in Sweden. Long-distance skiing used to be the main winter sport. It is still very popular and long-distance ski races attract enormous numbers of participants. However, Ingemar Stenmark's prowess on the alpine pistes has done a great deal to boost interest in down-hill skiing in Sweden. Slopes have been prepared and lifts installed in next to no time. This is also true of the southern half of the country, where snow machines are used in an attempt to prolong the winter season. Long distance skating is another winter activity which has been popular for years and has attracted any number of new participants in recent years. Local cycle tours and regular jogging sessions are very common, frequently in combination with berry picking or mushrooming. The Swedish institution known as the right of common access gives people extensive liberty of movement in the countryside, which is usually referred to in tourist information as the last wilderness in Europe. Open-air activity and nature conservation are above all the concern of the Association for the Promotion of Outdoor Life (Friluftsframjandet), which organizes special activities for the very young (aged 4-7 years) to lay the foundations of good conduct in the countryside. The Association not only encourages active physical welfare but works for the protection of nature in both the short and the long term. Exercise for "physical welfare" During the past two decades, the public sector, enterprise and many voluntary organizations have devoted increasing attention to human well-being. These efforts have gone under the common designation "physical welfare" (friskvard), which can best be defined as "the encouragement of good individual living habits". These activities, based on the principle of society and the individual cooperating for the prevention of diseases, originated with the efforts of the sporting and open-air organizations. For a very long time now these organizations have been campaigning for regular exercise and healthy eating habits. Those efforts were reinforced and "officialized" when the National Board of Health and Welfare mounted its national "Diet and Exercise" campaign in collaboration with local authorities, enterprise and the mass movements headed by the sports movement. That campaign was based on a report by a group of medical experts recommending exercise and better eating habits (reduced fat and sugar intake) and counselling against smoking and drinking. The campaign, which lasted for ten years, was concluded in 1981. The view was then taken that physical welfare efforts should be made an integral part of the ongoing activities of the various organizations. Many municipalities and county councils have drawn up physical welfare plans in collaboration with the sports movement. Several companies have followed the recommendations and appointed physical welfare advisers, developed occupational health services and so on. Many local authorities and companies have built so-called "physical welfare centres", principally with the aim of encouraging healthy living habits among middle-aged and elderly persons. These centres have personnel with medical training who can give medical advice, treat minor injuries and conduct fitness tests. Sometimes these centres can also be the starting points of skiing tours, jogging sessions, etc. Parallel to these physical welfare activities, the National Board of Health and Welfare and the county councils have a very wide range of health education activities. The physical welfare sector has also broadened its programme, which today includes anti-smoking and anti-drug activities as well as matters concerning diet and exercise. Schools have also devoted increasing attention to matters of physical welfare in recent years, under the umbrella designation "Health Education in Schools". In the long run it is these efforts which are likely to do most to establish good habits at an early stage. Within the sports movement, both the Swedish Sports Confederation and many of its affiliated national associations have drawn up physical welfare action programmes based on the activities of sporting and open-air organizations. The Swedish people are very interested in physical welfare and sport in various forms, and yet surveys have shown that only about 25% of them take regular exercise once or twice a week. A great deal therefore still remains to be done in order to translate good intentions into practice. ORGANIZATION AND FINANCE Organized sport has existed in Sweden for nearly 200 years, but it was not until 1987 that an organization was established representing all the various sporting activities pursued in Sweden at that time. The National Association for the Promotion of Sport, founded that year, still exists and can be regarded as a precursor of the Swedish Sports Confederation, which was founded in 1903. The Confederation is today the umbrella organization of Swedish sport. The sports movement has developed rapidly during the present century and is now the biggest mass movement in Sweden. The number of individual members is estimated at about 2.5 million, and about 2 million Swedes are believed to go in for sport and exercise on a regular basis. The organizational structure of sport has a long democratic tradition behind it. The basic unit is the club, and the supreme body in the sports sector is the Congress of the Swedish Sports Confederation, which meets every two years. This Congress is attended by 206 delegates appointed by the national and district associations. The Congress makes general policy decisions and, among other things, elects the Executive Committee of the Confederation. There are 62 national and 22 district associations affiliated to the Confederation. The national (specialized) associations also have a regional organization, comprising about 1,000 specialized district associations. The national associations cover one sport each and are sovereign in this respect. Several different events are often incorporated in one and the same national association. In terms of the number of clubs, the largest of these specialized sports are inter-company sports, football, skiing, gymnastics and bowling. Typical Nordic sports include bandy, ice sailing and orienteering. The district associations are regarded as the Confederation at regional level and are, accordingly, responsible for services and co-ordination at that level. The Swedish Parliament (Riksdag) has given the Swedish Sports Confederation the task of distributing State support to these sporting organizations. In 1988/89 this support amounted to some SEK 259 million. In addition, a budget of some SEK 80 million for the promotion of voluntary associations is distributed to sports clubs. The Confederation distributes state support not only to its affiliated associations but also to certain other organizations concerned with sport, viz. the student unions in ten university and college towns and organizations for the promotion of various sports, viz. the Swedish Pleasure-craft Association, the Cycling Promotion Association, the Swedish Central Federation of Rural Riding Clubs, the Swedish Amateur Fishing Federation, the Association for the Promotion of Outdoor Life, the Swedish Life Saving Federation-Association for the Promotion of Swimming, the Swedish Pistol Shooting Association, the Swedish Pony Club and the Society for the Promotion of Riding. But the support given by local authorities (municipalities) to sport is far more extensive. Among other things it takes the form of free or subsidized facilities and grants towards activities and coaching costs. Municipal expenditure in the leisure sector in 1988/89 totalled approximately SEK 7,000 million. The same year, sporting organizations received around SEK 1,000 million in the form of direct grants towards association activities. The running costs of municipal sporting amenities that year totalled some SEK 4,500 million. The county councils also put money into sport, though on a far smaller scale. Expenditure for 1988/89 was around SEK 60 million. These figures might seem to suggest that Swedish sport is entirely dependent on public grants, but this is not the case. The self-financing ratio is high and steadily growing. By tradition, self-finance consists of membership dues and gate money, but bingo, lotteries and sales activities are also important sources of revenue. In recent years, sales of radio and television broadcasting rights for attractive sporting events have also become increasingly important. Above all, there has been a growth of sponsoring. There is extensive company involvement in sport today. Sponsor co-operation has assumed considerable proportions, in common with sales of commercial advertising on sportswear and suchlike. On average, the national sports associations finance 55% of their activities by means of direct charges and sponsoring. A survey has shown that the total turnover of the Swedish sporting movement is so large as to make it, when viewed in purely economic terms, one of the most extensive business operations in the country.