Sports CLA Support material

1. Build Your Olympian:
Build Yourself
A Self Improvement Challenge


2. Who Competes in the
Olympics?
How many nations participate in the Olympics?

3. Activity: ‘Say Something’ about the
Olympics
Activity: With a partner go through the following steps and
have a quick conversation about the Olympics.
1. Partner A - share a meaningful connection that you have about the
Olympics: a particular athlete, an event you saw, your favourite event
2. Partner B - share a question that you
have about an athlete, a result or an
event from the Olympics
3. Partner A - share a reaction to the
question posed
4. Partner B - say “something” back

4. Who Competes in the
Olympics?
From the 27th of July 2012 204
countries sent more than
10,000 athletes to compete in
300 events.
Men, women, able bodied
athletes and para-athletes, even
pregnant women, were part of
the Olympics in London 2012

5. How did these athletes get
to the Olympics?
 What separates Olympic athletes from other athletes?
 Who rises to the top?
 Who helps them get there?
 What do you think?

6. What makes an Olympian?
In small groups at tables fill in the blanks with the handout provided.

7. SHARE your group’s findings
with the class.
Share your ideas about:
 what makes a great
Olympian?
 the roles of the coach?
 what do you think are the
most important aspects of
being a great athlete?

8. What do you know about what makes an
Olympian?
Strengths and Skills? What does an athlete’s day look
like?
Emotional and What makes a
mental attitudes? great coach?
What’s their role?

9.  Physical Character
What makes Traits: Physically fit,
strength, great reaction
an Olympian? times, high skills
 Daily Routines: training,
hard work, diet, sleep
 Great coaching: guides,
supports and teaches
athletes
 Emotional and Mental
Attitudes: Willing to fail,
Desire to win, loves
competition, very
disciplined.

10. 1. My Race
My Way
 During this unit you will get to focus on a specific personal
character trait that you want to improve
 Identify your strong and weak character traits.
 Consider your physical, emotional and mental traits.
 Select one or more to work on improving.
 Keep a training log that documents your work at trying to improve
one thing about yourself.
 Establish a learning and work routine to help you reach your
goals.
 Use your activity log to write up your final products and final self-
assessment.

11. My Race
My Way
Strong and  Provide handout to help
Weak
character
Physical
chart out personal progress
traits.
My routine Mental on your selected goal(s)
will include: Emotional
What will traits.
 Fill it out now but you can
success look
change your mind overnight.
What will I like? My Goal is
need to find to work on:
out about?  Try to complete some
What do I
know I need research this evening on your
to work on? goals.

12. 2. Training and Activity Logs
 Training Log
 Each morning you will write up a few points about how your
training is going – include your research and actions
 You will close each class with a personal self-assessment on your
training and your learning activities in the unit
 Activity Log
 You will document all assigned exercises, activities and writing
projects in the Activity Log
 A final self-assessment, The Personal Medal Ceremony, will be
completed in the Activity Log.
 Please note: your log books can be two separate sections in your
notes

13. 3. Build Your Olympian:
What will you need to find out?
 During this unit you will get to focus on a specific Olympic athlete of
your choosing and build a character profile of them:
 Identify their physical character traits.
 What is the role of their coach?
 What makes them strong emotionally and mentally?
 What are their weaknesses?
What was their big story?
 Did they win a medal? What did they place?
 Is there something unique about their history?
 Find out about the most important thing that happened to this athlete.

14. The Character Profile
Discussion:
What will a strong profile look like?
What elements or parts will it have?
What type of research will be needed?
How will you present your research?
What kind of skills will you be using?
How can you connect this profile to yourself?

15. 4. Select Your Coach
 During this unit you will get to focus on a specific Olympic coach
and:
 identify their specific job skills
 explore their role as coach
 define the relationship they
build with their athletes
 explain their values & beliefs
Discussion: Describe what type of
coach you would like to have?

16. 5. The Olympic Team Story:
Expansion Activity
 During this unit you may also get to focus on a specific
Canadian Olympic team and explore their big story:
 identify their main plot points of their Olympic journey
 Identify the high point of excitement for this team
 Identify which characters
played important roles
for the team
 Describe their story in
your Activity Log
 Share their story with
the class.

17. 6. Twitter Feed: The Athlete’s
Village
The Athlete’s Village: your feedback and exit card.
At the end of each class you will complete one twitter post to
one of the existing hash tag topics or create your own for others
to post to.
This will be either online or on chart paper on the wall
Topics will include:
 #my race progress
 #my challenges
 #my athlete

18. 7. Personal Medal Ceremony
At the end of the unit you will complete a final self-assessment in
your activity log where you will complete a medal ceremony for
yourself and explain your choices in your Activity Log.

19. SHSM Expansion Activities:
Non-Profit Sector
Explore Non-profit sector connections:
Character profiles must focus on athletes who are volunteers within the
non-profit sector through Right to Play initiatives or other non-profit
work that involves supporting youth academically, socially, physically
and emotionally .
Team presentations should look at a specific athlete based non-profit
organization and provide profiles of these organisations: their goals,
actions, participants, what they do and how they do it?
Have students research interviews with athletes who volunteer for these
organisations and present their summary notes to the class.

20. A Sample Athlete Profile:
Samia Yusuf Omar
Name: Samia Yusuf Omar
Gender: Female
Location: Mogadishu, Somalia
Age: 16 years old in the 2008 Olympics
Born: March 25, 1991
Died: April, 2012
Family: the oldest of six children. She came from a poor
family and from one of the country's minority ethnic groups.
Event: Track 100m, 200m
Best Placing: finished last in her first heat 200m and scored a personal best
in Beijing, 2008 of 32.16 seconds.
Physical Traits: 119 lbs, lean frame, excellent condition and health

21. Critical back story:
Samia Yusuf Omar In Somalia, she received a lot of harassment
from militants who believed that Muslim
women should not compete in sporting
events. Frequently the roads to the stadium
are blocked by militia who refuse to let her
pass. When she can get through to the
stadium, the track she runs on has many
holes from mortar damage and bombs.
Her Big Challenge:
She came out of family poverty, and a war
torn country. There was no breadwinner at
home. Her journey to become an
international athlete was one of great
struggle. Not only did militants harass and
oppose her personal choices to become an
athlete, even her family and friends
discouraged her. There were many obstacles
for her to overcome. She had to rely on
herself to succeed.

22. Coaching and Athletic Support:
Samia Yusuf Omar
The harassment restricted her access to
receiving any real coaching or having proper
facilities to train in. Unlike other elite
athletes, Samia took herself to the 2008
Olympics as a self-taught athlete with very
little support.
Mental and Emotional Traits: highly
determined and courageous.
In order to deal with all the pressure from
local militants, family and friends she must
be a person of great determination. Her
conviction also shows how she committed
she is to represent her country. She was the
only female athlete to compete for Somalia
that year, and in fact was only one of two
athletes from Somalia to make their way to
the Olympics that year.

23. The Big Story:
Samia Yusuf Omar
Is there something unique about her history?
In her first heat she came last at the 2008
Beijing Olympics. However, she ran a
personal best time of 32.16 seconds and
though she came last the entire stadium
erupted in applause to celebrate this self-
taught 16 year old young woman.
The most significant event in her life:
In an attempt to continue her training in
Italy, Samia drowned when the boat she was
taking from Ethiopia to Italy shipwrecked.
She was going to look for a coach that would
complete her training for the London
Olympic games. She was Somalia’s best
hope for a result. She is an inspirational
athlete that sacrificed everything, even her
own life to fulfill her goals.

24. Samia Yusuf Omar:
Her Impact
This YouTube video documents the facts of what happened to Samia Yusuf Omar
and gives us some insight into her Big Story, and her impact on other Athletes
following her death. Her life story teaches us lessons about courage and determination.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vatoAKj2AR4

25. Samia Yusuf Omar:
Source Material
 The International Athletics Association database, August 10, 2012.http
://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/letter=0/athcode=243397/index.html
 “Samia Yusuf Omar’s Italian dream. An interview with Teresa Krug of
Al Jazeera.”, Rina Brundu; Rosebud Online Journal, August 19,
2012.http://rinabrundu.com/2012/08/19/a-rosebud-exclusive-samia-yusuf-
omars-italian-dream-an-interview-with-teresa-krug-of-al-jazeera/
 “Against the Odds: Samia Yusuf Omar”; BBC News, July 21, 2008.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7492967.stm
 “Somali inspiration battles against the odds”, Teresa Krug; Al Jazeera, August 20,
2012 http://www.aljazeera.com/sport/2011/05/2011513103418320619.html

26. Expansion Discussion:
The Role of Sacrifice
 What is the role of sacrifice when it comes to self-improvement?
 Consider Samia’s story and what she struggled through in order to
fulfill her dream.
 What types of sacrifices do athletes in the Western world not have
to deal with?
 What type of sacrifices can we make to help work on personal
improvement in our own lives?
 Is anything worth the ultimate sacrifice of one’s life?