May 2022

On May 12, 2022, participants from 17 different countries attended the final conference of the EU-funded project STARTING 11 (60313-EPP-1-2018-1-NL-SPO-SCP), coordinated by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (AUAS, Netherlands) in cooperation with the partners EAS (Malta) CREPS Toulouse (France), German University Sport Federation (Germany), Sportlycee Luxembourg (Luxembourg), Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (England). Starting in 2019, the project aimed to implement the EU Guidelines on Dual Careers of Athletes through the empowerment of dual career service providers. The event was held at the Amsterdam Olympic Stadium with the purpose to launch the STARTING11 toolkit, which is freely available at https://starting11.eu/toolkits/.

The Conference was opened by Dennis van Vlaanderen (organizer) and Rector Geleyn Meijer, followed by presentations on the EU dimension of dual careers (Wolfgang Stockinger, TW1N; co-organizer) and on the STARTING11 toolkit (Emma Vickers, TASS; Pascal Schaul, Sportlycee Luxembourg; and Nicoleta Pana Digital Society School Amsterdam). Three parallel workshops allowed the participants to get acquainted with selected tools. Finally, Florencia van Houdt (European Commission – DG for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture), Larissa Klaassen (paralympic cycling), David McDermott (Liverpool John Moores University, and Laurent Carnol (National Olympic Committee Luxembourg) participated in a round table on the future of European dual career, moderated by Cees Vervoorn. The participants had also opportunities to network, and to get acquainted with the dual career of world-class athletes (Larissa Klaassen, paralympic cycling; Cees Juffermans, short track; and Johan Kenkhuis, swimming) in the Athlete-Student Stories area, and to walk through the iconic Olympic stadium.

EAS was represented by President Laura Capranica and Board Members Laurence Blondel and Ole Keldorf, who also acted as a co-leader of a workshop.