On February 8, with the Erasmus+Sport project "Restart Sport Engine in EU" a friendship basketball game took place at Limbaži Secondary School, in which young people aged 14-15 took part, proving that despite the constant restrictions, including in sports, basketball is alive! The boys not only played the friendship match, but also took part in a three-point shots competition, in which Mariss Ronaldo Vilumsons won. It is great that with the help of various Erasmus + Sports projects, you can maintain a sporting spirit in young people and do something out of the ordinary.

See the event HERE.

Project partners participated in an online meeting on the 25th January regarding the next activities in the extended period of the project lifetime. The Europen Commission has confirmed the extension of the project until June 30, 2022. Up to the extended deadline the project team has to implement a number of activities: finishe the brochure of the project, develop project's video and hold three meetings: a training meeting for coaches and trainers of all participating countries in Romania, an exchange for young athletes in Romania and a multiplier sport event for project teams and stakeholders in Greece.

The consortium of the project agreed on the following dates for the meetings:

• training meeting for coaches and trainers between 23 and 27 March, 2022;
• exchange for young athletes between 27 and 31 March, 2022;
• multiplier sport event for project teams and stakeholders between 17 and 20 May, 2022.

And the project team hopes to deliver the brochure of the project in all partners' languages - Romanian, Greek, Spanish, French, Latvian, as well as in English until the end of April.

 The transnational meeting No2 of the BMX project 'Training to Win', which was to take place in Zaragoza, Spain, took place online on 20 January. On the first day of the meeting, the project team evaluated the first year of the project, the Battery Test in Anadia, Portugal, in September, and discussed the future of the project for the remaining 18 months. Project partner Ceipes from Italy presented an online tool that will be implemented jointly by project partners from all six countries. LSIIDP at this project meeting was represented by LSIIDP Project Manager Sandija Zaļupe and Valmiera Sport School and BMX Club "Tālava" BMX coach Olafs Lakucs.

On the second day of the BMX project 'Training To Win', project participants split into groups, where project trainers from Latvia, Slovakia, Portugal, Spain and Malta worked more on the practical part of the thrid intellectual output, while project managers contributed to the development of the theoretical part of the training program of the third intellectual output 'BMX Training Course - Open Educational Resource'. This phase of the project will last from January to November this year.

It should be noted that the project team hopes to hold the second transnational meeting in Zaragoza face to face at the end of April.

The TM2 is memorized HERE.

At the Olympic Games, the number of athletes of both sexes is becoming more and more balanced and it is difficult to imagine even greater equality, the athlete Gunta Vaičule admitted to the "Television Studio" of the Television of Latvia. She is also a spokeswoman for the European Olympic Committee Athletes' Committee, but the runner believes that not all sports are equally suitable for all women and that their popularity leads to unequal competition at the Olympics.

In the world, there is much more talk about women's equality in sports than in Latvia, and in some sports the issue is very topical, Vaičule said. For example, about the availability of football for girls as much as for boys.

Vaičule welcomes the desire of women to engage in sports that have not gained much popularity among their gender. However, it is not so fair for women athletes of other sports to include low-represented sports in the Olympics just to have women represented, said the athlete who was running for the Tokyo Olympics.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is working to completely balance the weight class and number of participants for men and women, which increases the competition for men to enter the Olympics. Wrestler Anastasia Grigorjeva regrets that the Olympic quotas for boys in sports are running low, but she admitted to the Television of Latvia that the athletes will adapt to the new situation.

Vaičule, as a representative of athletes, has felt strange in meetings at the Olympic Committee of Latvia, although she could not complain about the attitude. While in a room with 97% of men who are two or even three times older, it was fearful for Vaičule to open her mouths, admitted the runner.

"You are only oppressed by the fact that you are in such a minority. Not because no one wants to listen to you or your arguments are stupid. The room is like that and the atmosphere is like that," the athlete explained.

Vaičule wishes to women athletes good coaches who would not be able to find the right approach through training, upbringing and motivation. Femininity in sports is declining, because the spirit and strength of the competition draws on the masculine, however, the true nature of a woman also provides an opportunity to achieve high results in sports, Vaičule reminded. She returns to the sport after giving birth to a girl.