Miki Matheson

JPN

Role

Education Committee Member, International Paralympic Committee & Project Manager, Nippon Foundation Paralympic Support Centre, Japan

Miki Matheson is a member of the Education Committee of the International Paralympic Committee and a project manager at the Nippon Foundation Paralympic Support Centre. She is a certified teacher who believes that the combined power of sport and education can help create a better world.

Matheson plays a key role in the creation, promotion and implementation of the I’mPOSSIBLE education programme. I’mPOSSIBLE is the official IPC Paralympic education toolkit of resources designed to engage young people in the Paralympic Movement.

She has been passionate about sport all her life and knows the power of sport inside out. She suffered a spinal cord injury at the age of 20 in a traffic accident and became a wheelchair user. Sport has helped her put herself back together, and she became a three-time Paralympic Games gold medallist and world record holder in ice sledge speed racing at the Paralympic Winter Games 1998 in Nagano.

Matheson was recently appointed a member of the IOC’s Olympic Education Commission. She aims to leave a positive influence in her home town of Tokyo – where the 2020 Games will be held – through both Olympic and Paralympic education to make new inroads for a better, more inclusive world for all.

The speakers

Using the unique power of sport to bring people together, the Olympism in Action Forum saw a range of global players, including Olympic Movement stakeholders, athletes, private and public sector leaders, NGO representatives, academics, artists and the media come together to talk on topical contemporary issues. Chosen because of their ability to effect change and their wide range of sometimes differing opinions, the speakers led lively debates and seeked to challenge received wisdom to inspire new ways of thinking.