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Loughborough Professor gains audience with Olympic Chief

Posted on 04/02/2009

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Loughborough Professor gains audience with Olympic Chief

A Loughborough University Professor has met with International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge to discuss how the world’s largest sporting movement can encourage more young people to take up physical activity.

Professor Stuart Biddle of the University’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences (SSES) was personally invited for an audience with Rogge after impressing at the IOC Word Sport for All Congress in Kuala Lumpur last November, where he presented on physical activity and new technologies.

Biddle, whose academic interests lie in physical inactivity, activity and health, sedentary behaviour and the motivational aspects of physical activity and exercise, met with Rogge at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne on Wednesday last week (28 January).

The pair’s discussion centred on the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in 2010, the role of sedentary behaviours in young people’s lifestyles and the role of the family and peers.

Rogge showed particular interest in the recently published Youth Physical Activity and Sedentary Behavior book, which was co-edited by Biddle.

“It was great to be able to meet with Jacques and make contact with the IOC at such a high level,” said Biddle. “He is really big on the youth agenda and wants to do more to encourage young people to take up physical activity. As a former medic he was really interested in the recent book and was keen to find evidence to guide the work undertaken by the IOC.”

The meeting was followed by a workshop of seven invited experts from across Europe and Africa which is helping to shape IOC thinking on the subject of youth and physical activity, of which Biddle was the only UK representative.