Stories from the UN Archive: Tumbling for peace and development
UN Photo/Teddy Chen A team composed of Sweden's top gymnasts perform at UN Headquarters in 1973. (file) Culture and Education
The UN has long recognised the power and universality of sport, from forging alliances with athletic organizations small and large around the world to lending support for the ongoing Paris Olympics and messages of peace.
The UN uses that universality to unite individuals and groups through supporting sport for development efforts, participating in events from the global to the grassroots level and developing its own related campaigns and initiatives.
A team composed of Sweden’s top gymnasts wound up a tour of the United States with an outdoor performance at UN Headquarters in the summer of 1973.
The performance, which lasted about an hour, took place in front of the doors at the visitors’ entrance to the General Assembly building. The 18-member team visited the greater New York area and Washington, D.C. on a goodwill tour to promote interest in health and physical fitness.
At the time, Sweden had contributed troops to UN peacekeeping operations around the world and would also participate in the UN Emergency Force II, launched in October 1973 after fighting broke out in the Middle East.
Check out part of the Swedish team’s 1973 routine below:
Driving development
Due to its vast reach, unparalleled popularity and foundation of positive values, sport is ideally positioned to contribute towards the UN’s objectives for development and peace.
In that vein, the General Assembly designated 6 April as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace in a resolution adopted in 2013.
World leaders reaffirmed sport as an “important enabler” of sustainable development when they adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015.
Making sport history
Since then, UN initiatives have worked with athletes and associations across the planet, including with the ongoing programme Football for the Goals, a platform for the global football community to engage with and advocate for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
In 2016 in Rio, Brazil, refugees made history, participating in the Olympics for the first time. A 10-member team, backed by UN refugee agency, UNHCR, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), was created to bring attention to the magnitude of the global refugee crisis, becoming a symbol of hope for refugees worldwide, deprived of the opportunity by conflict and persecution, of representing their countries or even often playing sport at all.
During the current Paris Olympics, the largest ever Refugee Olympic Team, with 37 athletes competing in 12 sports, continues to offer a beacon of hope to some 120 million forcibly displaced people worldwide. So does boxer Cindy Ngamba, who became the first refugee Olympic medalist last week.
UN Photo/Kim Haughton Yiech Pur Biel, a runner for the 2016 Refugee Olympic Team from South Sudan, addressed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) #Withrefugees petition event in 2016. (file)
Sports for peace
Over the years, IOC and UN collaboration has played a central role in spreading the acceptance of sport as a means to promote the internationally agreed development goals and also peace.
In 1992, the IOC renewed an ancient tradition by calling upon all nations to observe the Olympic Truce, an eighth-century Greek tradition calling for the cessation of hostilities before, during and after the Games.
The tradition encouraged a peaceful environment and ensure safe passage, access and participation for athletes and relevant persons at the Games, thereby mobilising the youth of the world to the cause of peace.
UN Photo/Evan Schneider The United Nations and the Olympic flags raised at UN Headquarters. (file)
World body endorses Olympic Truce
The General Assembly endorsed that tradition in 1993 during the conflict in former Yugoslavia, adopting resolution A/RES/48/11 to urge Member States to observe the truce from the seventh day before the opening to the seventh day following the closing of each Olympic Games.
The resolution has itself become a tradition at the UN, most recently for the Paris Olympics, being adopted every two years preceding the holding of the Winter and Summer Olympic Games respectively.
Ahead of the Olympics in Russia in 2014, Dmitry Chernyshenko, president of the Organizing Committee of the Sochi Games, held a stakeout at UN Headquarters after the Assembly adopted the truce resolution.
“This is very good tradition with very ancient roots that started with first ancient Olympic games in Greece more that 2,700 years ago,” he said. “It was a great initiative to stop any conflicts and war for one week before the games and one week after the games, and this tradition has been revitalised in 1993, and we are very eager and happy to say with satisfaction that this resolution was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations today.”
Stories from the UN Archive
UN News is showcasing epic moments across UN history, cultivated from the UN Audiovisual Library’s 49,400 hours of video and 18,000 hours of audio recordings.
Catch up on UN Video’s Stories from the UN Archive playlist here and our accompanying series here.
Join us next time for another dive into history.