The child before the "athlete": the significance of culture in elite sport for realising children's rights

The start of the Olympics this week marks the culmination of a summer of sport. We’ve already had the European Championships in football, Wimbledon in tennis and the Open in golf amongst others. For sports fans there is much to celebrate and enjoy as we support athletes from all over the world at the pinnacle of their sport. Some of these athletes are children. Lamine Yamal (football), Mirra Andreeva (tennis), Luke Littler (darts), Sky Brown (skateboarding) and Kamila Valieva (figure skating) have all hit the headlines in recent months to name but a few young ‘sporting stars’ who, international law tells us, are children. This is a fact too often forgotten.