Sport Connects Countries

"Sport Connects Countries" was the theme of the first sport science symposium realised by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Germany, and the General Administration of Sport of China in cooperation. Further partners were the Federal Institute of Sport Science, Germany, the Beijing Sport University and the International Council of Sport Science and Physical Education (ICSSPE).

The symposium was the first step into a new cooperation between China and Germany in sport politics and resulted from the signing of a Letter of Intend between Germany’s Minister of the Interior, Wolfgang Schäuble, and the Minister of Sport of China, Liu Peng, in April 2008. Schäuble stated that “this symposium provides an excellent possibility of a recessed exchange of experiences between renowned experts and it contributes to understand the respective structures and development of the different sport systems”.

At the symposium which focused on sport structures in both countries, sport medicine and sports law, experts of both countries presented their papers which allowed the audience to have a direct comparison between characteristics and developments in both countries.

After the opening by Chinese Vice Minister Zui Dalin and Germany’s Parliamentary State Secretary, Christioph Bergner, Gudrun Doll-Tepper greeted the participants of the symposium on behalf of the German Olympic Sports Confederation and the German Olympic Academy Willi Daume.

Among the participants were more than 100 students of the Beijing Sport University who listened to the presentations, asked questions and participated in discussions. Detlef Dumon, ICSSPE Executive Director, who led through the sessions and the panel discussion at the end of the conference was impressed by the interest of the students: “Especially the two topics sport structures and sports law caught the attention of many of them”, Dumon said.

Presentations will be published as proceedings and will be available on the ICSSPE website soon.