Is sport cool for kids?

"In my opinion sport is already cool. However, it should be made more available for kids in schools, especially if they want the opportunity to play something like tennis. I think there should be more grass areas so there are more places to play football or tennis."

Cathy Freeman, Olympic gold medal winning athlete

"Sport needs to be made more accessible to young people. Anyone can go and listen to music but not everyone has the proper facilities to go and run."

"I think sport is a great thing for kids to get involved with. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind. Sport is a catalyst for so much."

"The main thing is to lower ticket prices so more young people can go to sporting events. Tennis is something which local communities are trying to encourage people from all walks of life to take seriously rather than just being an elitist sport."

"As many young people as possible should be encouraged to take part in sport. If you have got a talent for one particular sport which you think is cool you should stick with it."

"I thought sport was always cool for young people. When I was young I wasn't really into sport, but as I got older I became more interested. You meet people and get great opportunities through involvement in sport which is important."

"Every school should have playing fields for its pupils and councils should provide more grass areas too. It would also be good if there was more publicity and advertising about interesting sporting clubs for kids."

"Pressure should be taken off children to win all the time at school and teachers should see that kids have joined their team for fun not glory. If this does not happen then the whole idea of teams should be scrapped, and maybe once a month a tournament could be held where kids could enter with their friends."

"Sport would be more cool in school if we were allowed to chose the activities we took part in. It would be more fun if adults and other young people didn't put so much emphasis on winning."

"Sport could be made cool at school if less emphasis was put on trivial formalities like wearing the correct kit and more stress was put on enjoying it. I also think that if people were given the chance to chose the sport they did it wouldn't be viewed as a compulsory bore."

"Young people would find sport cool if a wider range was shown on terrestrial TV. This would encourage people to get involved in things other than football, cricket and rugby. After the Olympic Games friends of mine took up new sports such as cycling, swimming and volleyball."