UNESCO Champions for Sport are international celebrity sport personalities advocates for the United Nations agency UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

. This family of world-class athletes purveys UNESCO's message the world over. By the same token, they reflect UNESCO's concerns to promote the values of physical education and sports with a view of building a better future for younger generations.

Current list

Currently, twelve personalities are designated UNESCO Champion for Sport:

Name	Country	since	sport	Link
Virgilijus Alekna Virgilijus Alekna Virgilijus Alekna is a Lithuanian athlete who specialises in the discus throw. He won medals at the 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympics, including two golds.-Career:...	Lithuania	23 November 2007	discus throw Discus throw The discus throw is an event in track and field athletics competition, in which an athlete throws a heavy disc—called a discus—in an attempt to mark a farther distance than his or her competitors. It is an ancient sport, as evidenced by the 5th century BC Myron statue, Discobolus...	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=41321&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Veronica Campbell-Brown	Jamaica	2008	sprint Sprint (race) Sprints are short running events in athletics and track and field. Races over short distances are among the oldest running competitions. The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event—the stadion race, which was a race from one end of the stadium to the other...	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=46708&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Serhiy Bubka	Ukraine	2003	pole vault Pole vault Pole vaulting is a track and field event in which a person uses a long, flexible pole as an aid to leap over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the ancient Greeks, as well as the Cretans and Celts...	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=24022&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
David Douillet David Douillet David Douillet is a French judoka and politician.Douillet was born in the city of Rouen. Standing at 1.90 meters and weighing 125 kilograms , he won the judo heavyweight gold medals in the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games in Atlanta and Sydney. He also gained four world titles and a European crown...	France	2002	judo Judo is a modern martial art and combat sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an...	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=24016&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Vyacheslav Fetisov	Russia	26 May 2004	ice hockey Ice hockey Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=24023&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Hakuho (Davaajargal Munkhbat)	Mongolia	27 July 2006	sumo wrestling	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=36348&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Justine Henin	Belgium	14 December 2006	tennis Tennis Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=36316&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Vitaliy Vitali Klitschko Vitaliy Volodymyrovych Klychko is a Ukrainian professional heavyweight boxer and the current WBC heavyweight champion. He is a leader of the political party Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform and a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Congress of the Council of Europe. He previously...  & Wladimir Klitschko Wladimir Klitschko Wladimir Klitschko is a Ukrainian heavyweight boxer. Klitschko is the WBA , IBF, WBO Super, IBO & Ring Magazine Champion. His older brother Vitali Klitschko is the current WBC champion...	Ukraine	4 December 2006	boxing Boxing Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=36314&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Pelé Pelé However, Pelé has always maintained that those are mistakes, that he was actually named Edson and that he was born on 23 October 1940.), best known by his nickname Pelé , is a retired Brazilian footballer. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time...	Brazil	June 1994	association football	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=8322&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Michael Schumacher Michael Schumacher Michael Schumacher is a German Formula One racing driver for the Mercedes GP team. Famous for his eleven-year spell with Ferrari, Schumacher is a seven-time World Champion and is widely regarded as the greatest F1 driver of all time...	Germany	2002	Formula One racing Formula One racing A Formula One race or Grand Prix is a sporting event which takes place over three days , with a series of practice and qualifying sessions prior to a race on Sunday....	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=24019&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Jacqueline "Jackie" Silva Jackie Silva Jacqueline Louise Cruz Silva is a retired volleyball player from Brazil, who won the gold medal in the inaugural women's beach volleyball tournament at the 1996 Summer Olympics, partnering Sandra Pires....	Brazil	2009	beach volleyball Beach volleyball Beach volleyball, or sand volleyball, is an Olympic team sport played by two teams of two players on a sand court divided by a net.Like volleyball, the object of the game is to send the ball over the net in order to ground it on the opponent’s court, and to prevent the same effort by the opponent....	http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=46414&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html