Austria’s Olympic Centres have held various workshops and education campaigns across the country, aimed at aiding the refugee crisis ©OOC

Austria’s Olympic Centres have held various workshops and education campaigns across the country, aimed at aiding the refugee crisis.

As a result of the “Sport for Integration” project, launched by the Austrian Olympic Committee (OOC), the five training centres in Dornbirn, Innsbruck, Klagenfurt, Linz and Salzburg initiated pilot projects alongside local sports clubs earlier this year.

Most of the people benefiting are asylum seekers or refugees, with tens of thousands of people fleeing tough situations in the Middle East and Africa and attempting to reach Europe.

In Dorbirn, the Olympic Centre invited 60 unaccompanied refugee youngsters along with 50 students from the local high school.

Theresia Kiesl has been working at the Olympic Centre in Linz ©Getty Images
Theresia Kiesl has been working at the Olympic Centre in Linz ©Getty Images

Four training sessions were held in football, karate, boxing and basketball, with refugees interested in joining a sporting association or club given the chance to work off their membership and equipment costs.

Other Olympic Centres put on a number of sporting activities with the help of Austrian athletes, including Olympic gold medallists.

About 90,000 people, most of whom had fled westwards into Europe from the Middle East, applied for asylum in Austria last year alone, with sport seen as a key way of integrating them with the rest of the country.

Atlanta 1996 1500 metres bronze medallist Theresia Kiesl is helping coordinate work in Linz, where two teams of asylum seekers participated in the relay of the city's Marathon in early April.