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OSTRAVAR ARÉNA
The Olympic Festival opened on Feb. 9 and turned the surroun-
dings of OSTRAVAR ARÉNA in Ostrava into a multifunction
sportsgrounds offering opportunities to try out 30 sports,
Olympic as well as non-Olympic, winter and summer ones. One
of the Ambassadors of the Festival, David Moravec said on the
opening day, “I am excited. I guess the total of visitors may go up
to some 80,000 athletes.” The final number exceeded 100,000.
“The Moravian-Silesian Region is a region closely connected
to sports. We annually invest dozens million crowns in this sphere.
We want to enhance the image of the region as an active, modern
part of our republic which attracts visitors and motivates them
to come back again. That is why the regional government appre-
ciates expansion of the Olympic Festival from Ostrava in the Beskyd
and Jeseníky Mountains. The Festival atmosphere was amazing.
People could stay at home passively watching the sporting
holidays, or support our athletes in Korea by visiting the Olympic
festival, being active, and joining in the action and attractive plan,”
said Governor of the Moravian-Silesian Region, Ivo Vondrák.
Fans of our Olympians could take part in the sports programmes
in Ostrava and four ski resorts in the Moravian-Silesian Region:
in Bílá, Mosty u Jablunkova, Karlov, and Kopřivná. Visitors appre-
ciated well-designed and well-kept trails, contest and races open
to the public, demos of various sports, lectures by the Mountain
Rescuers, fine supporting programme but also a drink of fantastic
hot toddy with Governor Ivo Vondrák who praised the Olympic
festival in the mountain resorts very much, “I truly enjoyed the
fantastic atmosphere. I originally thought that my main discipline
will be pouring drinks and sipping toddy with visitors, yet I couldn’t
resist and did some exercise. I believe that with the next Olympics
we well organize similar event with even greater success.”
Martin Koukal Taught Children from Ostrava Cross-Country Skiing
Martin Koukal, the World Champion in Cross-Country Skiing
on 50km trail in 2003 came to Ostrava not only to demonstrate
how elegant he is when swiftly striding forward. He gave advice
on how to master the skiing technique; dozens of keen young
skiers went through his workshop. What does Martin Koukal see
as the key problem concerning the young and talent scouting?
“It undoubtedly is the snow. If the present kids had the same
amounts of snow just round the corner as we had years ago, even
the urban kids will go skiing among the blocks, not only in the
mountains. That would make a great difference. That is why I am
so happy to see a cross-country trail at the festival here in Ostrava.”
Curling