Because knowing how to swim is more than a physical activity – it is an essential asset for everyone – FINA applauds Paris 2024 for its commitment to teaching more kids how to swim.
Following the mission of FINA’s Swim for All, Swim for Life, Swim for Health programme, Paris 2024 organisers have partnered with the National Sports Agency, the French Swimming Federation and the Parisian area cities of Clichy sous-bois, Villetaneuse, Sevran and Bagnolet to officially launch the summer 2022 rollout “Savoir Nager en Seine-Saint-Denis” today.
Part of the power of the Olympic Games is how the event touches people far beyond the field of play, which is just what savoir nager – French for “learn to swim” – started last summer. The programme offers free swimming lessons to children in mobile pools in deprived areas, or in pools usually closed or only open for bathing. In the first year, 1,800 children learned to swim last summer thanks to this programme.
FINA President says Paris 2024 programme transforms lives, leaves positive cultural change
Pairing the power within the five rings with a well-envisioned programme in the upcoming Summer Games city has the attention of FINA President Husain Al-Musallam to the initiative’s immense potential.
“FINA is determined to continue promoting swimming as a sport and an essential life skill around the world. This kind of promotion of swimming has also become a key legacy contribution to the success of the Olympic Games,” FINA President Al-Musallam said. “The Savoir Nager initiative will help more than 5,000 young people into the water and teach them fundamental skills at the early stages of their aquatics journey.
"By providing greater access to swimming pools in Seine-Saint-Denis and in cities across France, I have no doubt that this programme will transform the lives of many young swimmers to come and will contribute to positive cultural change around swimming."
Paris 2024’s Learn to Swim programme aims to teach 5,000 children to swim this summer, all over France
With recent aquatics luminaries like Laure and Florent Manaudou, Leon Marchand and Camille Muffat, France is among the world leaders in aquatic sports. But there are plenty of opportunities to teach more people the essential life skill of swimming. Case in point: In Seine-Saint-Denis, the host territory of the Paris 2024 Games, one in two children cannot swim when they enter college.
Following last year’s success, the second edition is expanding into 29 communes across France, with the aim of reaching 5,000 children this summer. As part of the project being driven by the French Swimming Federation, seven mobile pools are being installed in areas that lack equipment.
Swimming swimmingly – a societal issue
The Paris 2024 Olympics offers a unique opportunity to promote the development of physical activity and sports – and in particular, learning to swim.
Each year, the figures on deaths by drowning offer a stark reminder that knowing how to swim is not merely a matter of pleasure and leisure; it is a matter of public safety, which can reflect inequalities blighting society and certain geographical areas. Children from deprived backgrounds are rarely given swimming lessons. On average, 48 percent of children do not know how to swim by the time they start secondary school. In Seine-Saint-Denis, the host territory of the Paris 2024 Games, there are only 38 pools to cater to a population base of 1.6 million. In this territory, six out of ten teenagers still cannot swim. This Savoir Nager programme has the expressed aim to change this statistic.
Leaving a lasting aquatics legacy – even before Games-time begins
The upcoming Summer Olympics is sure to leave a lasting aquatic legacy. The Aquatics Centre, where the world’s greatest artistic swimmers, divers and water polo players will compete is one of only two permanent sports facilities that will be built for this edition of the Games.
The Paris 2024 Games will leave a much later lasting aquatic legacy than this one world-class facility. In Seine-Saint-Denis, over 20 pools will be built for the Games. When the Olympics have come and gone, these pools will be there for the local communities to enjoy.
Elite aquatics athletes help in this summer’s rollout of ‘Savoir Nager’
Five-time FINA World Champion Camille Lacourt and Laura Tremble, finalist in artistic swimming at Tokyo 2020, were present alongside a Paris 2024 delegation headed up by organising committee president Tony Estanguet for the second round of the programme.
Paris 2024 President outlines ambition for the Olympics to create a difference in host communities
“The ‘Savoir Nager’ programme is a tangible testament to our ambition to leave a positive legacy after the Games: a material legacy in the form of newly-built pools in the areas where they are most needed, but also a human and social one, supporting young people to get active and gain confidence in the water,” said Estanguet. “These are things which are crucial to know, the basic skills which must be instilled from a very, very young age.
“The programme also demonstrates, once again, the power of the Games to bring people together, acting as one to help extend the uptake of physical activity.”