Ivo Vondrák,

hejtman Moravskoslezského kraje

Governor of the

Moravian-Silesian Region

Olympic Festival in Ostrava

Straightforward Success

17 days, 30 sports and over 100,000 visitors: such is the summary of the Olympic Festival 2018

in Ostrava. After the triumph of the summer version of the project prepared by the Czech Olympic

Committee at the time of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro 2016, the organizers announce a fantastic

response to the winter festival.

OSTRAVAR ARÉNA

The Olympic Festival opened on Feb. 9 and turned the surroundings 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 appreciates 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 appreciated 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.”

Final Numbers

Visitors: 101,624

Participating Olympians / Sport Stars: 59 representatives

Diplomas Issued (to schools, visitors, ski resorts): 12,901

Participating Elementary Schools: over 2000 children

from 35 schools from all Moravian-Silesian Region

Medals awarded: 2,527 awarded to individuals;

1,450 more to participating sports clubs

Olympic Bread sold: 1,200 loaves; 12,155 slices of bread

Volunteers: 267 people

Oldest Volunteer: born in 1952

Busiest / Most Popular Sportsground: Curling

Construction Time of Sportsgrounds: 25 days

POSITIV 1/2018

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