Gordon Brown pledges return of competitive sport to schools

Prime minister says ‘medals for all’ culture is wrong
Gordon Brown vowed to bring back competitive sport in schools today, saying it had been wrong to discourage children from competing against each other.
The prime minister promised to extend the range of sports available to children and revealed that a taskforce of the country’s female sporting champions would be set up to inspire more girls to participate.
“We want to encourage competitive sports in schools, not the ‘medals for all’ culture we have seen in previous years,” he said. “It was wrong because it doesn’t work. In sport you get better by challenging yourself against other people. A lot of sports are team games where people have to work together but they play against other teams.”
Brown said the government had now begun to “correct the tragic mistake of reducing the competitive element in school sports”.