Promoting Sport

The town of Malbork, Poland, had been promoting sport for many years. We are still striving for perfection, but recently the town started to promote many various sport disciplines among the young people to make sports an integral part of their education and life.

In a great abundance of sport events for 2004 there are many events and contests which integrate youth and promote positive social behaviour such as teamwork, respect and responsibility.

One of the biggest achievements, our city's pride, was opening a new sports hall in September this year. At last an appropriate place for young people was created to develop their abilities and willingness to sports. It was officially opened on 2 September and was financed from the Ministry of Education and Sport and municipal resources.

In 2004 a number of events have been organized at Malbork which required not only physical skills but also the knowledge of medieval history. Malbork's special contests which are organized every year during Malbork Days are "dragon boats races" on the Nogat River and this year there were also Polish Water Sports Cup organized in the capital city on the Route of the Gothic Castles.

At the Castle's Museum there are special classes organized during the whole year which are called the "knight's run". These are supposed to develop student's activeness and reference skills related to history knowledge. The classes are held in the Gothic fortress, encouraging the development of pupils' activity, stimulating curiosity and instilling respect for the past.

Not only pure history gets to the core of sport activities in Malbork. The town is quite well prepared to go in for many sport disciplines like: basketball, football - 2 sports fields, volleyball, tennis, canoeing, weight lifting, aerobics and famous strongman contests which originated in our town.

Sports and competition have always been an important part of education in Malbork and we will be continuing this process. Yet, much more needs to be done to make sports an integral part of people's education and life.