On the Record - "Dream Come True" for Peru NOC President

(ATR) Jose Quinones tells Around the Rings the recent 15th IOC World Conference on Sport for All "will be in our memory forever".

In this wide-ranging interview conducted last month in Lima, the president of the Peruvian Olympic Committee discusses Sport for All, the future of Peru, and Lima's candidacy for the 2019 Pan American Games ahead of an inspection visit from PASO wrapping up today.

Around the Rings: What’s been the biggest highlight of the week for you? Did you learn anything you want to be sure to incorporate here in Peru?

Jose Quinones: Well, first of all, to have almost 400 delegates from foreign countries plus around 300 from Peru is one of our biggest goals because we have the opportunity to share experiences from around the world.

It’s not a question of how money you invest. It’s a question of how can you get to your own population and help them to practice sport and physical activity. And that’s not a question, again, of money. It’s how you do it. So we can learn from Cook Islands to USA or China. Every country, every delegate, every speaker at this event shows us their own experience and how they manage to help their own societies, and that’s important.

ATR: It’s obvious Sport for All is huge here within Miraflores. What about the less developed areas of Peru? What’s going on there?

JQ: For example, on April 25, there were visits to Callao, Miraflores and Villa Maria, so we were looking – if you classify them – at classes A, B, C, D and E. All the social classes in our country – Villa Maria running to C, D and E; Callao C and D; and Miraflores A and B.

So I think everybody saw that at least our country is trying to improve for our people, for our children. But there have been wonderful experiences in many countries, and the solutions in Africa, in Oceania, in Asia, in the Americas, in Europe, they are really amazing.

For example, the projects that received the [IOC Sport for All Grants] on the first day – the Martin Luther King project here in Peru, the project in South Africa, the project in Brazil – they are wonderful projects. The project in the favelas is amazing! The project in South Africa also. It’s social inclusion, social integration in South Africa, for example. Improving the quality of life in Brazil and here in Peru. They’re amazing, and they’re not so expensive. So again, it’s not a question of money.

ATR: You told my colleague recently that Peru needs new heroes, and that those heroes should be sports heroes. What did you mean by that?

JQ: Societies all need role models. We came out of a hard situation decades ago in our country, and for a moment, it seems that we lost the way for our society, for our young people. Physical education was not obligatory in our schools, so people abandoned sport and physical activity, and that is bad for our societies, bad for our people. For that reason, we need role models, and sport provides plenty of role models.

But sport is not medals. Medals are a consequence of massive practice of sport. But the dream and the legacy of Pierre de Coubertin was not medals. 120 years ago, Coubertin said of every 100 people that get involved in physical activity, around 60 will choose some sport. Then around 20 will specialize in a sport, and of them only two or three can have the possibility of giving us great, great goals in sport. So 120 years ago, with no studies, with no surveys, Pierre de Coubertin was projecting the reality – the base of the pyramid.

Sometimes people forget, they’re thinking in the upper level, and Olympics is not only high-level, it’s also basic. Pierre de Coubertin told us the difference between Olympians and sport is sport and physical education, cultural education and spiritual integration, so a complete new human being. And that’s why we’re here. You can’t forget that you have an obligation to all your people.

ATR: To what degree is the World Conference on Sport for All a stepping stone towards the 2019 Pan American Games?

JQ: They are different goals. First of all, we have a compromise with the IOC and the Olympic Family around the world.You can ask. We haven’t said anything about Lima 2019 because we can poison this event. First of all, again, it’s not medals. It’s not getting the Games or getting the conference. It’s the spirit. From winning the campaign, you cannot destroy the Olympic spirit. You cannot poison it.

For us, this is a dream come true to bring the family of the Olympic Movement here to Lima. This is our goal. This will be in our memory forever.

Now, there is another goal – the Pan American Games – and that’s a different goal, but for the same reason. It’s not only because of the honor of hosting, it’s because we believe that they will be the best for our country and for our people. Still, we have poverty. Still, we have a majority of the population that doesn’t practice physical activity and sport. We need to push. We are trying to push our society to see the reality, to see the importance of practicing sport, and incorporating the Olympic Values into their lives.

If we can get the 2019 Pan American Games, we will have six years, six years to show our population the importance of sport. To permit them the dream of bringing the Usain Bolts, the Asafa Powells, the Michael Phelps of that moment. Little children will begin to dream of seeing them. That will have a new dynamic in this country. We need it.

It’s not only because the venues. Of course, they are important. It’s not about the medals – of course, they are important. It’s because we need to change our city and our nation. It’s important, it’s relevant, it’s more than relevant. We need it. We really need it, and we will do our best to get it because we are convinced it’s our mission. We have a debt with our country in sport, and we are willing to pay it, and that’s the reason we promise to do our best, not only to get the Games but really that these Games will change Peru and that they will give the American continent a new spirit of the Games. Back to the basics. Back to the roots. Back to the legacy. I’m not saying that previous events forgot about it. But giving it to a country the size of ours – a small country – to give the opportunity to show that the Pan American dream is not about money. It’s about spirit.

And of course, we have been doing a lot to get this experience. Not to wait until the Pan American Games to get experience. We have been hosting this conference, the Beach Games, we are going to host the first Youth South American Games, the Bolivarian Games again, and three world championships this year. Because we know that we have to get experience. We know that we have to prove to the groups, teams. This is like any sport. You don’t send your freshman to the Olympics or to the world championships. You send them first to the nationals, then to the regionals, then to the continentals, then to the worlds. It’s the same. We have to learn how to do it, and we are learning.

The last four years, we have been hosting every year world championships. We are hosting all the projects, all the events that have never anybody asking for them. For example, the first Youth South American Games, they gave us the honor to host it in August, so one year and one month after, we have to host a South American Games. That is really hard, and we are doing it.

And the Bolivarian Games were originally given to Panama, and after two years they had to say we can’t, and we are getting it and we are doing everything because we want to be stressed. That’s the only way. You have to stress the team. You have to prove yourself. We will make failures, but we don’t want to make them in the Pan American Games. We want to be sure that every quote in the bid proposal is true. We have to be clear that everything we promise, it will be accomplished. And we will do it more than that. And the only way to do it is to practice, practice, practice every day.

This year, we have the Youth South American Games, Bolivarian Games, this conference, three world championships. And we are a small NOC. But we have to do it. Because if not, we would be lying to the Pan American NOCs. We would have been promising something that we are not sure or didn’t know. For the last four years, we have been asking all the Games hosts to practice, to field a team, to convince the government that they have to be involved. Now we are investing in the Bolivarian Games in three cities more than $200 million. Only on the venues. Plus $50 million in equipment and organization. That is a one-and-a-half-year investment. When you are talking about Pan American Games, that’s the average investment per year. So we have also to stress our government. How they have to work to get money and time. That is not so simple in this country. Not only Peru, and the government is answering well. They are convinced. They have backed this event. So you see a government involved, you see a society changing, you see everybody working together, all the government levels, the private companies, the NOC, everybody wants it. Everybody likes the idea.

Interview conducted in Lima by Matthew Grayson.

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