From Great Speedskater to Great Humanitarian

It has been 10 years since Johann Olav Koss was an international hero. Actually, he still is, but lots fewer people know about it.

If the name is familiar, it is because he won three gold medals at the Lillehammer Winter Olympics in 1994. He was a speedskater who reached the heights of his athletic career in a home Olympics, a Norwegian Eric Heiden, if you will.

But in the middle of all the adulation, superlatives and flag-waving, Koss did something few remember but many have benefited from, something that nudges him along a career today that he says is so compelling, it has allowed him to leave behind, comfortably, a medical career and all the lucrative trappings that usually come with that.

“I had won my first gold medal at Lillehammer, and I was ecstatic,” Koss said. “I had two more races to go and I thought back to a trip I had taken to the African country of Eritrea about six months before the Olympics. I saw a group of young boys, looking at a poster of soldiers from their country who died in war. It was clear. They were the heroes. And then, a group of bicycle riders came by and the boys turned and chased after them.

“It struck me that it was good to be an athlete, to be looked up to for that reason.”

And so, when he won his second gold, he said he would give his bonus money, earned as an Olympic gold medalist, to a fund for children. The gesture took hold and when he suggested in a news conference that each Norwegian give the equivalent of an American dollar for each Norwegian gold medal to a fund for children, he had really started something. Norway won 10 gold medals in Lillehammer and the Norwegian population donated $18 million to the fund. From that, many good things came, including the construction of a hospital in war-torn Sarajevo.

After the Olympics, Koss got his medical degree, moved to Toronto and married Canadian political personality Belinda Stronach, daughter of Frank Stronach, who owns Santa Anita and several other major horse racing tracks. Koss and Stronach are now divorced.

Koss remained involved in children’s causes as part of a group called Olympic Aid. Last year, it changed its name to Right To Play. Koss, 36, is its president and CEO.

Koss said that all his group’s work was done in developing countries, 20 of them now, and that all was focused on children in great need.

Koss said his group raised funds, supported a staff and encouraged volunteer coaches to start and run programs. He said that more than 500,000 children were being touched by his program, and that he had 120 volunteers in the field, serving as coaches and program administrators.

“It is a commitment similar to the Peace Corps,” he said.

He is here to appear at a seminar and drum up support for what he does. His Olympic connection opens lots of doors. He says he does it because of what he has seen.

“I went to a country in Northern Africa and saw who the most popular young boy was,” he said. “I asked why he was the most popular, and he told me it was because he had a shirt with long sleeves. The others couldn’t play games until he was there, because he was the only one with long sleeves, and only his long-sleeve shirt was big enough to roll up and use as a ball to play games.”

He said one of the program’s goals was giving young girls a chance through sport.

“I met one young girl in Sierra Leone. She was 15 and had a 2-year-old child,” he said. “She had, basically, been abducted at age 9 by a soldier and lived with the rebels. When she was released, she said her family wouldn’t accept her, and her community wouldn’t accept her. She was attempting to learn sewing, but there were 20 girls and 10 machines.

“She got involved in our program and, just before Christmas, I got a letter from her. She said she was now respected again by her family and community, and that, had this not happened to her, she would have certainly gone back to the rebels.”

And what sort of athletic pursuit got her on the right path?

“She is part of an ultimate Frisbee team,” Koss said. “She was excited because they were going to a tournament.”

The motto-logo of Koss’ program, inscribed on a soccer ball, is: “Look After Yourself, Look After One Another.”

There are a thousand causes connected to sport, and more than a thousand people preaching the gospel of each. Johann Olav Koss doesn’t have a pulpit, so the Olympics have to suffice. So far, that’s been good enough.