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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