Harbin, China, August 12, 2025: Excellence, respect, and friendship – Olympic values – were a lesson handed out to 47 young athletes at the OCA-ISU-CAIC Asian Figure Skating Youth Camp.
While the main focus is on ice, developing skating skills, jumps, choreography and spins, this inaugural figure skating development camp attended by children from 20 Asian countries and regions, is also placing a great deal of emphasis on all other facets which will one day combine to create a fully-rounded and accomplished athlete and person.
“We have four facets to any development camp, other than skill training. These topics are safeguarding, prevention of competition manipulation, anti-doping and Olympic Values Education Programme (OVEP),” explained Wissam Trkmani, OCA Director of NOC Relations and Development.
“We include OVEP only for large camps like this where the focus is on young athletes. We want to teach them Olympic values at a young age, so they can go on and represent their countries with a foundation based on solid principles,” Trkmani added.
At the opening ceremony of the nine-day camp last Sunday, August 10, Trkmani in his speech reminded all participants that they were in Harbin to “not only grow as skaters, but to grow as individuals, guided by excellence, respect, and friendship”.
And this was the main theme highlighted during the one-hour OVEP session presented by Sardana Zhendrinskaia, Deputy Secretary General of Children of Asia International Committee.
“There are children from many different cultures here, and an integral part was to show that you are not the centre of the world, but rather you are one part and how to mix with different cultures,” said Sardana.
Olympic history was a key part of the session with the children getting totally involved in interactive games.
A Q&A on the Olympic Games and the unusual delivery of the Olympic Torch/Flame was popular – 1976 Montreal where a satellite was used to transmit the flame from Olympia in Greece to the stadium; 1994 Lillehammer when a ski jumper jumped 120 metres with the torch in his hand; 2000 Sydney, the flame being transported underwater; 2008 Beijing when the flame was taken to the top of Mount Everest; and 2014 Sochi when the flame was taken to space.
In another interactive aspect, a group of children were asked to mime Olympic sports - synchronised swimming, biathlon and curling - and the others to guess which sport it was.
“The children were very involved, especially the Arabic and Russian-speaking children. The overall response was excellent and I hope this will leave a lasting impression on them in their journeys to become not only a top athlete, but a well-rounded individual,” Sardana added.
