Olympian Taha Akgl appears on OLI TV to teach hundreds of Turkish children about the Olympic Games

Olympic wrestling champion Taha Akgül was a special guest on the Turkish Olympic Committee’s (TOC) Sports Culture and Olympic Education Project (OLI) which was streamed live to more than 600 children on Friday 5 March.

The multi-activity programme allows children to take part in a series of educational classes, focusing on key areas such as fair-play, healthy eating and environmental awareness, as well as the Olympic Games, Olympic sports and Turkey’s Olympic credentials.

Due to COVID-19, the TOC took the decision to take OLI sessions online so that children could continue to benefit from this highly valuable project, which has reached more than 2 million school kids since 2006.

Akgül, who won gold for Turkey at Rio 2016, joined OLI TV for its first online session to explain how he began his professional career in sport, the methods he uses to compete at the highest level, the emotions he felt when becoming an Olympic champion as well as the impact sport has had on his social life.

Physical education teachers from the schools which took part in the first-ever OLI TV session thanked the TOC and Akgül for providing children with an excellent role model who can inspire them to take up sport and reap the benefits of physical activity.

OLI TV will now run weekly sessions throughout the rest of the academic year for thousands of children across Turkey. More celebrity guests are expected to appear alongside the permanent staff working on the project.

25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is www.aroundtherings.com, for subscribers only