INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

The environmental awareness has been always an intrinsic part of
the winter sports practices. This fact can be related to the origins of
the winter sports activities and to the fact that they are mostly
practised in natural environment.
The balance that can be observed in winter sports practice and the
awareness to protect the environment is not related to events or/and
sports tourism. In these cases winter sports have been criticised for
causing damage to the environment.
In the Olympic Movement the first environmental conflict with
international repercussions took place in the Olympic Winter Games
of Albertville in 1992. Not far from this attrition, in the same year, the
International Ski Federation signed up the Agenda 21 (UNCED). And
the 1994 Olympic Winter Games of Lillehammer showed to the world
that it is possible to promote a sustainable mega-event.
The challenge created by the Norwegian Olympic Committee
stimulated the inclusion of the environment in the Olympic Charter.
And since then the environmental protection has been enclosed in the
Olympic sportive events planning.
Although the IOC has specifically added the protection of the
environment as an educational responsibility of the Olympic
movement, it is a recent change and it is still being adjusted to the
management of the Games.
The Lillehammer Games shows that the cultural background was
the main reason for promoting the environmental changes on the
Olympic Games. The participation of the environmentalist groups on
planning the ecological strategies agrees to the cultural influence. .In
this case the LOOC took care to promote educational projects with a
short-term and long-term consequences.
The Salt Lake City experience showed that in the original project
they intended to link schools initiatives to environmental education.
But they didn’t report them, probably because they didn’t execute
them. On the other hand, they worked in partnership with
environmentalists and created educational projects to act during the
Games-time showing that the event itself can promote education and
environment awareness.
In the coming Winter Games in Turin, a simplified view was
adopted on environmental concerns, although the TOROC made
environmental projects. The projects were entirely created by the
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