Sylvan Adams, the noted Canadian-Israeli philanthropist and businessman, was at Ben Gurion University on Monday evening for the dedication of the Sylvan Adams Sports Center.
The advanced training complex, which is being built in collaboration with the university, will include two swimming pools, a technological cycling training hall (Power Watt), locker rooms and communal areas.
The Sylvan Adams Sports Center, which will open in August, is expected to become the main sports center in Be’er Sheva and its environs and will attract many students and young people to the site. It will also help develop popular competitive sports in the region, as the other training centers established by Sylvan Adams have done throughout the country.
Since making aliyah, Sylvan Adams has referred to himself as “Israel’s self-appointed ambassador-at-large.” Many of his activities in this role involve sports and cultural events which present Israel to significant overseas audiences, numbering in the hundreds of millions and even billions of viewers.
Adams, who believes that sports play an essential role in today’s fractured Israeli society, has invested heavily in sporting infrastructure in Israel, such as the Sylvan Adams National Velodrome in Tel Aviv, the state-of-the-art Sylvan Adams gymnasium at the Jerusalem International YMCA, and the Sylvan Adams Sports Science Institute at Tel Aviv University.