100 days before UEFA EURO 2024: Great atmosphere at the SCHOOL|SPORT|EVENT
Ambassador Elisabeth Seitz, the German record-breaking gymnastics champion and Host City Ambassador, shouts out "Do you want to get moving?" across the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer Hall. "Yeahhhh!" is the reply, at a volume that would make even seasoned concert-goers' ears ring. 100 days before UEFA EURO 2024, around 1,000 children from 25 Stuttgart schools transformed the large arena into a cheerful and sporty "madhouse" this Wednesday morning at the SCHOOL|SPORT|EVENT. Happy faces among the children and organisers from the association Sportkreisjugend, the Office for Sport and Exercise (Amt für Sport und Bewegung) and the Host City Stuttgart.
"When you see them rushing around here like that, it makes your heart beat faster," said Martin Maixner, Chairman of the association Sportkreisjugend Stuttgart. "There are still 100 days to go until we, as one of the ten host cities at the European Championships, will experience great 'sporting togetherness'. And that's exactly what you can experience here in the Schleyer Hall today." "In football, you play together as a team," said Dr Clemens Maier, Mayor for Safety, Order and Sport, taking the idea further. "Everyone has their own talent and contributes what they can. And today you have the opportunity to do this as a team, I hope you have loads of fun!"
"It's really nice to see how the children are all keen to get moving," says Elisabeth Seitz enthusiastically after the joint warm-up programme with the children and the UEFA EURO mascot, "Albärt". "And in any case, I believe that sport should be more firmly anchored in society again. That's why I think this campaign is great, and not only because it's already creating pleasant anticipation for the tournament 100 days before the European Championships, but I also hope that lots of children will go home today and tell their parents that they want to join a sports club – if they aren't already members somewhere."
The Schleyer Hall resembled an anthill, such was the hustle and bustle of the second-year pupils, who were able to compete in various exercise challenges at nine different exercise stations. Whether it was somersaults, juggling tennis balls on rackets, balancing along an upturned gymnastics bench or dribbling around cones with a football, the pupils got stuck in straight away. The children had a fantastic time. After just under two hours, all the exercise stations had been completed and each child was delighted to receive their own sustainable wooden medal. There were trophies for the three best classes from the Raiffeisen Primary School in Feuerbach, the Sommerrain School in Bad Cannstatt and the Herbert Hoover School in Mühlhausen.
