With the slogan “Live your Passion”, le XXXI Olympic Games draw the attention of over half the population of the world, with an audience estimated at about 4.5 billion people. It will be an opportunity to appreciate the performance of 10.500 athletes coming from 206 countries. Altogether, 28 Olympic sports will be demonstrated, including rugby sevens and golf.
This is the first time that Brazil, and more precisely the city of Rio de Janeiro, hosts such an event. A happening that amplifies even more the interest in the context of the Salesian Family during this month of August.
For teenagers and young people of the schools and socials houses, the Olympic Games exert a very special attraction, because for many of them the sports contests demonstrated in the Olympic programme are part of their daily life. Some boys and girls have already been pre-selected for the Olympic Games of 2020 and therefore train every day.
In Sports, One Column
Sports practice is one of the columns on which lays the preventive system of Don Bosco. In Salesian playgrounds, the ball is always on the move, the improvement of the performances of the youth is continuous, and the training constant. Integration and fraternal contests in collective or individual sports play a strategic role in the educative process.
The pupils excel in the playground, in competitions or in training, because there is always the possibility to improve and to grow. The rules of the game, the presence of the adversary and of the team companion represent values which are easily absorbed in Salesian environments and are immediately applied in the formation of the athletes. Discipline in training and in setting the rules, as well as enthusiasm for the challenges of life, are other characteristics that join these young athletes of the entire world.
This is why it is possible to find, in the world of sports, successful and outstanding athletes who come from Salesian schools: Cesar Cielo, in swimming, and Oscar Schmidt, in volleyball, are some of the famous examples.
In this moment in which Brazil and the entire world participate in the Olympic Games, the value of sport for the formation of the youth becomes more evident (Cf. Boletim Salesiano – Brasil).
