Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0346/03469.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 20KB | 359 lines

$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 Federat