OlympicGames most awarded rower Lipa: Don't need studies to know sport cuts hospitals' patients

Elisabeta Lipa, the most awarded rower in the history of the Olympic Games, with five gold medals, two silver and one bronze says that sedentariness is a serious problem in Romania and that there is no need for studies to find that physical movement reduces the number of patients in hospitals. 'I don't think we need any studies to come to the conclusion that moving from little to elder to 90 years if your body is holding you, with a healthy lifestyle, reduces the number of patients in hospitals. That's clear. Statistics that show a high degree of sedentariness show that we don't play sports now, because before they forced us to play sports, but now we have to instill again the love for sport and for movement. And it wouldn't have been that we were sedentary, but what diagnoses does that entail? Because we're getting sick, of course. And what's in hospitals now, where would we get those who get sick from other reasons?" Elisabeta Lipa told AGERPRES. The President of the Romanian Rowing Federation said that during the pandemic this phenomenon became acute due to the restrictions imposed by the authorities: "The fact that at school there is no sport anymore causes great shortcomings. The kids are spared, and then occurred the pandemic and locked us up altogether. School clubs are closed, sports schools are closed. Okay, it's not school, but why wouldn't we do sport?! Why do you have to close the gyms? They practically shut us down in this youngest area. What we're capable to rescue is the big teams. So, if this level is all closed, what about mass sport, leisure? It no longer exists, you see the resistance to the gyms, which also have a special operating regime. And otherwise you don't see much. Besides, the cold, the world doesn't move much anymore, because it's cold outside." Declared the best canoeist of the 20th century by the international specialized federation, Elisabeth Lipa warns that the closure of the school sport during this period will have repercussions on the sport of performance in the future. She also believes that the collective mind regarding the practice of sport can be changed starting with education in this regard, and with strategies at the national level, which are strictly respected. The National News Agency AGERPRES, conducts, in partnership with the Ministry of Youth and Sport and the Romanian Olympic and Sports Committee, a public information campaign on the benefits of practicing sport on the immune system, in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Romania, the absence of physical activity among the population is one of the causes of increased mortality among patients with COVID-19, says the doctor and university lecturer Bogdan-Alexandru Hagiu, from the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport of the "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" University in Iasi. And, according to the most recent Eurobarometer, carried out by the European Commission in 2018, Romania ranks second in terms of sedentariness. According to the data, more than 63 pct of Romanians never practice any form of physical activity.AGERPRES(RO - author: Adrian Tone, editor: Mihai Tenea; EN - editor: Maria Voican)