ADDRESS BY MARY ROBINSON AT THE OPENING OF THE 22ND EUROPEAN NATIONAL OLYMPIC COMITTEES
22ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE ASSOCIATION OF EUROPEAN NATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEES ON FRIDAY, 5 NOVEMBER, 1993.
It gives me great pleasure to join you here today at this prestigious gathering of European Olympic committee delegates representing forty seven countries. I would like to extend to each and every one of you a very warm welcome to Ireland. We are deeply honoured that the President of the International Olympic Committee, Marques de Samaranch, is present with us today, as well as other representatives of the International Olympic Committee and Dr. Jacques Rogge, President of the Association of European National Olympics Committees and we hope that your visit to Ireland will be both fruitful and memorable.
Today represents a milestone for the Olympic movement in Ireland as this is the first ever Olympic event to be held in this country since the foundation of the Olympic Council of Ireland in the early 1920s.
Ireland has made a significant contribution to the Olympic movement over the years through the activities of its international representatives but particularly through the personal qualities of Lord Killanin, President of the IOC for many years. Lord Killanin is a person of great talent and communication skills who steered the movement through difficult times and I am delighted to see him here among all his friends in sport this morning. His successor, Marques de Samaranach, is also to be congratulated on his substantial contribution to the Olympic movement. His trojan work has resulted in the modernisation of the whole organisation and marketing of the Games and has led to such innovations as the Olympic Museum in Lausanne. I know that under his continued stewardship exciting times lie ahead.
From its humble beginnings in 1896 the Olympic Games now boast 172 national Olympic teams in competition. This poses a daunting organisational challenge to the host country. On that point I would like to congratulate the Spanish Olympic Committee, the City of Barcelona and indeed the people of Spain for their highly efficient work in organising the Barcelona Games in 1992. They certainly did Europe proud on that occasion and gave the world a wonderful taste of their culture in that memorable opening evening. I would also like to welcome to Ireland delegations from the host cities of future Olympic Games and to wish you well in your challenging organisational tasks.
The world is fortunate that Baron De Coubertin had the foresight and courage to revive the modern Olympics. Why did he do this? In his words "In order to ennoble and strengthen sports, in order to assure their independence and duration and thus to set them better to fill the educational role which devolves upon them in the modern world. To exalt the individual athlete, whose very existence is necessary for the involvement of the community in athletic sports and whose achievements provide an example to be emulated". There is no doubt that athletes at olympic level provide the greatest example of all to young aspiring athletes. Those athletes who achieve by personal excellence and hard work alone are an inspiration to all young people.
Sport has developed on an extraordinarily wide scale in the past century. It is both a universal and a unifying force. It is also one of the liveliest factors in international relations as there are few international exchanges which arouse so much popular interest and national pride as sports events. The Olympic Games
surely rank as the most spectacular of all such sporting events attracting a world wide audience of many millions daily. It must give AENOC much pleasure that Europe contributed over half of the athletes participating at Barcelona in both single and team disciplines. European athletes won 450 of the medals available. This is a record you can all be proud of and augurs well for the future of sport in Europe.
In preparing not only for the Centennial Olympiad in Atlanta but planning sport in the future, AENOC faces many new and wide ranging challenges such as assisting new European national Olympic committees to organise and prepare themselves and their athletes, confronting legal and other issues which arise in sport today, contributing in a meaningful way to the work and policies of the International Olympic Committee, the continued promotion of the Youth Olympic days and advising your members on structures of sport in their respective countries. You have a very positive role to fulfil in maintaining good relations between the countries you represent.
I will leave you with a reminder of some further relevant words from Baron Pierre De Coubertin "May joy and fellowship reign and in this manner may the Olympic torch pursue its way through the ages, increasing friendly understandings among nations for the good of a humanity, always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure". I would like to formally declare the 22nd General Assembly of the Association of European Olympic Committees open and wish you all well with what I hope will be positive, open and fruitful discussions.