Pedro Sánchez insists that high-level competition should not be incompatible with work or studies

Since the service was created it has helped more than 3,000 sportspeople by providing services such as personal training, information, job banks, study grants and psychological support.

During his visit, Pedro Sánchez said that sport should be a priority and a truly national sport policy should be constructed with everyone taking part: sportspeople, organisations, governments and civil society. "When we support sport, when we look after the welfare and future of our sportsmen and women, we are also taking care of our country and making our societies more cohesive," said Pedro Sánchez, who insisted that both the Spanish Olympic Committee's Athletes' Information Office, as well as the Sportspeople's Support Programme of the Higher Sports Council, must play a key role.

The President of the Government thanked sport and all the sportspeople for their valuable contribution to the health of our societies: first, as a source for transmitting values and skills for life; and second, as ambassadors for Spain. He also thanked these elite sportspeople for their commitment, by using the prestige of their names to get involved in noble causes, such as the fight against child poverty and raising awareness against gender violence.

Pedro Sánchez encouraged the sportspeople to repeat the success achieved in Rio 2016 in Tokyo 2020. He reminded them that these will be the first Games to be held under the influence of the 2030 Agenda, where sport plays a key role among the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals.

Pedro Sánchez, who was accompanied at the event by the State Secretary for Sport, María José Rienda, held a meeting with Alejandro Blanco, President of the Spanish Olympic Committee, and with 120 elite sportspeople from a variety of disciplines, for whom the speakers were the women's handball player Eli Pinedo, and the Olympic walker Diego García Carrera. There was also a discussion between the boxer Rafael Lozano, the women's handball player Montserrat Puche and the triathlete Pilar Hidalgo.

Non official translation