Call of the ISF President on Play True Day

Laurent Petrynka

As an organiser of world’s biggest events for school students, the International School Sport Federation (ISF) recognises its responsibility in caring for school sport, promoting anti-doping on all levels and implementing zero tolerance towards doping. The ISF also believes that spreading a strong message on anti-doping for children early on, whilst they begin to undertake sports activities is a factor towards successfully nurturing a generation of sport practitioners and athletes dedicated to healthy lifestyle, clean sport and fair play. For the ISF, a crucial approach must focus on the educational tools that need to be implemented in schools to support PE teachers. The topic must be included in all PE lessons for a holistic approach to sport from an early age, for a healthy and responsible engagement based on the Olympic values and Play True initiative.

The ISF is implementing and developing educational tools and programmes for each of its events within its overall programme. The ISF is the only Federation that suspends sport activities for one day during its sports events in order to dedicate that day to educational programmes. These include anti-doping and clean sport-oriented activities as was the case last year during the ISF WSC Athletics Friendship relay in Split, Croatia where hundreds of kids raised their white cards with the words “Clean” and “Athletics” as a symbol to their commitment to clean sport within a framework of a global World Athletics campaign.

To this end, the ISF is carrying out anti-doping tests at the majority of its events in order to protect its athletes and encourage the global school sport community to say no to doping. In addition, the ISF will enforce its anti-doping efforts at its upcoming multisport events: ISF Gymnasiade in Jinjiang, China this year, in Normandie, France in 2022 and in Krasnoyarsk and Ekaterinburg, Russia in 2021 and 2024. This will also be the case for the new upcoming ISF World School Football Championship which will be taking place in Qatar in 2021. In addition to these efforts, an educational anti-doping activity will also be at the core of the educational event’s programme.

ISF President Laurent Petrynka said, “The ISF has a unique responsibility to inform all stakeholders in school sport (students, PE teachers, school administration) on the dangers of doping. We believe that the importance of fair play should be advocated from an early age as the young person’s values are being shaped. We join the global community in celebrating Play True Day in emphasising the importance of the subject and with the aim to increase our contribution towards clean sport internationally.”

About ISF

Based in Brussels (BEL), the International School Sport Federation (ISF) is an international non-profit sport organisation that sets up grassroots sport events and competitions as well as educational events for primary and secondary school students aged between 6 and 18 years old. The ISF was founded in 1972 as the umbrella organisation and governing body for national school sport organisations and currently gathers 128 national member associations over five continents. Recognised by the International Olympic Committee since 1995, the ISF promotes values of education through sport.

With more than 30 sports in its competition programs, the ISF organises four different categories of events: Multisport Games (Summer & Winter Gymnasiade, Combat Games); World Schools Championships, World School Cups and Educational events. Each year the ISF coordinates more than twelve international sport and education events around the world.

April 9, 2020, Brussels, Belgium