INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

The most recent educational initiative was the launching of the
activities of the EOA Club for Children in autumn 2003. The Club
offers an attractive programme covering sport and Olympism-related
issues for children at pre-school and younger school age.
Since 1992 the EOA has organised discussions on the training of
Estonian Olympic athletes in the form of conferences and seminars. In
these traditional meetings important problems, related to the
organization of training process of highly qualified athletes, have been
dealt with by outstanding coaches and sport scientists.
The first issue of the official journal of the EOA Acta Academiae
Olympiquae Estoniae (AAOE) appeared in 1993. The main aim of this
journal is to promote the philosophy of Olympism and the scientific
foundation of the Olympic Movement providing an international
forum for related studies and for the discussion of relevant problems.
The editors-in-chief Dr Tõnis Matsin (1993-2000) and Dr Arved Vain
(since 2001) have significantly contributed to the qualitative
development of the journal. For a long time the AAOE appeared once
annually, however, in 2002 a new attractive design was developed for
the journal and since that time two numbers are published each year.
Since 1997 the EOA has promoted the principles of Fair Play at a
nation–wide scale by awarding the annual Fair Play prize to the most
outstanding in this respect young athlete. In addition to that several
articles, bulletins and videos have been produced in order to promote
the following of Fair Play principles by everybody involved in sports.
The EOA continues to have good cooperation relations with the
University of Tartu and the Estonian Sports Museum. The new joint
initiative is the organizing of international conferences on sport and
Olympic history. The first conference took place in Tartu in the
autumn of 2003; the next is being prepared and will be held in 2005.
The collaboration ties of the EOA with schools and county-level
sports organizations have become considerably closer first of all in
relation to developing the School Olympic Games project.
The EOA has to a near-maximum extent used the ample
possibilities offered by the International Olympic Academy for
promoting Olympic education and for participation in the international
Olympic movement. Of other national organizations the best contacts
have evolved with the Finnish Olympic Academy. For promoting
international partnership, the EOA is preparing the conference of the
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