Billion Dollar Babies

There is a form of misery that is right in front of our eyes that we choose not to see. Behind the idyllic image of major events with television audiences in the billions, competitive sports worldwide hides a tragic reality: the broken lives of hundreds of thousands of children around the world.

We know that authoritarian regimes subject their future champions to extreme training conditions, but what we are less aware of is that those methods now set the tone for elite sports in western democracies.

Over the past few years, dozens of studies conducted by pediatricians, psychologists and sports sociologists have piled up, and their conclusions converge: in the vast majority of cases, high-level sports training abuses children. Defenders of children’s rights are also drawing attention to the fact that there are no specific rules in place to protect children training for elite sports. After the doping and corruption scandals in the early 2000s and the recent revelations about the epidemic of sexual abuse, the abuse of elite child athletes is going to be the next revelation shaking up the world of sports.

Delivery May 2024