A very long and good article with good photos and videos at Aftonbladet's Sportsbladet about Daniel's visit to IFK Viksjö in Järfälla on 9th June. He spoke also about Estelle and Oscar.
Parts of the article
Prince Daniel: I want the children to experience it
Worried and frightened by the crisis for the sports movement
Before Prince Daniel got into the Volvo with the tinted windows to roll towards Järfälla, the Duke of Skåne wanted some attention.
- We have a wooden goal on the plot at home and Oscar wanted to stand in the goal and said "shoot high dad!". You enjoy of that, says Daniel.
Now we are in Viksjö to look at the joy of sports but also because Daniel is genuinely worried.
Actually, we should probably all panic.
Now the sports movement is gathering strength to attract back the children and young people who were also locked out during the pandemic.
Daniel spoke about Generation Pep's Pep Report. Only two out of ten children between the ages of four and seventeen reached the recommended amount of physical activity by 2020, and only one in ten children live a healthy diet and exercise. Daniel says that it is incredibly worrying and frightening that it is so bad, he was almost prepared that it would be bad with the diet but it was more surprising that only two out of ten move enough. There will be consequences.
When Daniel was young, he played ice hockey, football, basketball, floorball and rode motocross. In his teens, ice hockey became most important when he changed clubs to be able to invest more in hockey.
- We didn't even have an artificially frozen ice rink at home in Ockelbo and I preferred to train every day. But no, it was too cold or too hot and the ice had melted or it had snowed too much. But when I was 16 years old, I switched to another team that was 45 minutes by car from home. 16.15 the bus went to Sandviken, then I waited 45 minutes in Sandviken on the bus to Hofors and then it was one or two hours until the training started when I arrived. I had 95 training sessions the first season and probably had to take a bus to 85 of them. So I did it for five or six years, I went at 16.15 and came home at 21, 22 or 23. I was done in and my talent was not really enough for that venture.
When the motivation for an elite investment no longer existed, Daniel left club sports completely.
Daniel thinks back to a visit he and Victoria made at the beginning of their marriage.
- There they had the hall open and it was floorball in one corner, ping pong in one and then maybe some jumped skipping ropes. The leaders were not there to coach but only because there would be adults in the room. I have thought about that often, why don't you see it anymore?
Daniel has also found padel, which is very popular nowadays. He tells he tries to play it a couple of times a week.
Daniel is asked why padel is so popular? Daniel thinks it is accessibility, which is the wrong word because it is inaccessible, but once you have a time, it is very easy to have fun. He had his friends from Ockelbo here two years ago and then Daniel had played once or twice, someone once and someone not at all. But after they played a first ball, it was longer than any ball they would have managed to achieve all day on the tennis court next door. They didn't even know how to run in padel but they had so much fun.
While talking with the girls in Viksjö, Daniel tells about the football match with Oscar before the car went towards Järfälla. When Daniel described how he enjoyed the match, one of the girls fills in: "It's fun until the children start winning over one".
Yes, says Daniel, and they have already started running faster than him. But you have to take it. It's a little fun too, maybe.
Someone asks if Estelle and Oscar play football? Daniel says that Oscar goes to football school, but Estelle is a basketball girl. She preferred it but she is only nine years old so there is time. It seems like you can keep up with football for a long time.
Estelle and Oscar are only nine and five years old, but during the pandemic, Estelle began her journey in the Swedish sports triangle. Daniel tells with enthusiasm:
- I would like my children to experience winning together with others in a team. The feeling when you get off the field and have won and fought. That you may have a little pain but that it is still just joy. Or that you pat each other after a loss and think that "now, we should train harder so that we can take them next time". This is what you really want the children to experience. But on their terms.
How involved Daniel is in his children's sports?
- I am involved as a parent, drive and line up. Now they have not started with matches yet, or Estelle has played two basketball matches but then no parents were allowed in the hall, but otherwise I am there and trying to encourage.
What was it like not being allowed to enter the hall?
- It was incredibly boring. It's really one of the highlights of the weekend when you can follow training and see how they develop and fight. You get happy if they want the ball, because it is always the case in sports that it is different what character you have. But you hope that the children will take care of themselves and have fun.
Daniel has a penalty shootout with the girls.
It is well past nine in the evening before Daniel leaves the football field in Viksjö. Despite this, he testifies to an inner motivation that means that it may be 20 minutes in the gym before it is bedtime this Wednesday night.
Prins Daniel om krisen för svensk idrott • 1 av 10 barn når målet
Swedish sport has its own climate problem. We are aiming for the top, we are talking about academies and elite investment, but perhaps we should look towards the very foundation of everything.
Fewer and fewer move, more and more stop.
Do we not see that the ice is about to melt?
When Sportbladet's Patrik Brenning interviews Prince Daniel, the conversation is about something as old-fashioned and urgent as class. A prince at Haga Palace reasonably reasoned about the class perspective - how is it even possible that sports or politicians can not do it then?
Simon Bank om krisen för svensk idrott
Jonna Sima, editorial writer and assistant editor in chief of Aftonbladet at her Twitter
"Just the fact that Prince Daniel constantly has the class perspective in his reasoning about health is very nice to see. "Screen time is one obstacle, socio-economics another ... We must remove all those obstacles so that there are equal conditions for all."
"Hard not to like Ockelbo's son Prince Daniel, and especially his involvement in young people's sports and health. Another brilliant article by
@PatrikBrenning"
Waldheim Public Affairs Officer at @svenskfotboll at Twitter
"Fantastically good that Prince Daniel uses his unique platform to promote movement and physical activity. And fun that football got to be involved in the form of @fotbollforbund and the awesome association # IFKViksjö.
A very fine reportage with Prince Daniel at IFK Viksjö by @PatrikBrenning. The report highlights many important aspects.
The Royal Court at its Facebook
"I was born -73 and when we grew up it was not cool to have a helmet on the slalom slope. It was stopped as soon as you got it, and you absolutely did not have a bicycle helmet or back protection. But there has been a shift in standards and we need to do that in other areas as well. " - Prince Daniel
Today, a major interview is published in Sportbladet with Prince Daniel. In the interview, which was conducted during a visit to IFK Viksjö, the Prince talks about the need to break the sedentary lifestyle and give all children the opportunity to move.
https://www.facebook.com/Kungahuset...2207520000../4308174349241444/?type=3&theater
Photos from 9th June at Facebook of IFK Viksjö
https://scontent-hel3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=6a8ec110c11a2d5d9bc1e0b6bedeb35a&oe=60CFD626
https://scontent-hel3-1.xx.fbcdn.ne...=c8b08918fad20a7859f55f196c0c6f2f&oe=60CF9A49
Very good interview/reportage of Daniel and great to see the court also highlighting it.
