What is the Sport for Good Weekend?
Imagine the beautiful Swiss mountains. Titlis, Engelberg, and their gorgeous nature in Summer. Now imagine you can spend a weekend there in a beautiful hotel, and share your time with the best Swiss athletes. They will give you a class, or play golf with you, or offer you different activities like biking, rock climbing , HIIT training and paragliding. I can tell you that this means a lot of laughing, and challenging moments as well! Welcome to the Laureus Sport for Good Weekend.
Last weekend I attended the event and trained with Denise Biellmann, who has been European and World Champion in figure skating. I also went running with the best Swiss triathlete, Jan Van Berkel, his wife Sarah (who has also been a European Champion in figure skating), Alpinist Stephan Sigrist, and snowboarder and Olympic gold medalist Gian Simmens. It was a blast. They might do different sports, but I tell you…they can run! Keeping up wasn’t that easy, even though they went quite slow.
I especially liked the moments in between activities, and the meals, because talking after doing a physical activity together became really easy, and open. We talked about mental training, and how to manage stress in sport and life. Everybody had a little story. I went home with a lot of tips and ideas.
In the evening there was a gala, with auction and tombola, to raise money for the charity. Baschi sang his popular “Bring en hei” and got us all dancing and clapping.
Carlos Lima and Martin Wittwer. Photo: David Hubacher
About Laureus
During the year, champions and Laureus ambassadors do sport activities with children. They meet in schools, gym or camps, train with them and spend some time together, tell them their personal stories of how they achieved their goals, motivate them and inspire them by moving and playing. Sport for Good is the motto, and Laureus supports more than 10’000 children in Switzerland every year in seven social sports projects. Imagine biking with Fabian Cancellara or running with Mujinga Kambundji! All children, regardless of origin, social class, health restrictions etc are integrated and motivated to reach a self-determined life. The focus is not on performance, but on the joy of sport and of the shared experience. During the Laureus weekend, the same was done with us grown ups. We really got to know the work of Laureus, while enjoying ourselves as well. We then went home with a head full of beautiful images and impressions, and the motivation to move a bit more.