download - IOA

Address
By Mr Dimitris AVRAMOPOULOS (GRE)
Mayor of Athens
It gives me great pleasure to welcome this evening in Athens, the capital of
modern Olympism, HE Mr Juan Antonio Samaranch, the President of the IOC and
all the members of the Olympic Family who will attend the 41 st International
Session for Young Participants of the International Olympic Academy.
The theme you have chosen for your Session, a Review of the Olympic Games
of Sydney and Athens, will provide an excellent opportunity for reflection and
valuable teachings. The Olympic Games of Sydney were a major organisation
success. We are certain that there is much we can learn from the successful
experience of the people who worked for these games with such excellent results.
Useful conclusions can and should be drawn from this experience, as well as
from previous success stories, like Barcelona, but also from cases of more limited
success to avoid similar mistakes.
We are, however, convinced that the Olympic Games of Athens will be an even
greater success, because to the successful organisation will be added the dimension
brought by Athens historic choice. The cultural dimension of the games will
become reborn in 2004 and perhaps even more so from now until 2004, during
the period of the Olympiad. Unique events, like the staging of the Marathon race
on its classical, authentic itinerary, after more than one century, as well as the
overall spirit permeating the return of the games to their original spiritual sources,
will give to the Athens Olympics the dimension that we all want and make the
Olympic Movement stronger at a time when mankind needs it more than even
before to establish world peace.
Indeed, as I have repeatedly indicated, globalisation is not just an economic
term, but more so, or at least equally so, a political and cultural term, the consequence
of this world reality being to promote man as a centre of reference, in
direct vital and cultural relation to the city, the social environment in which man
exercises his right to life.
The conditions that will ensure a healthy and constructive relationship
between men and cities at world level, are inherent in the fundamental principles
of Olympism, and bring forth neglected but constant values and principles which
in turn contribute to contacts, co-operation, understanding and emulation among
26