EYOF FACES FURTHER CHALLENGES

In just a few weeks, the countdown to the XVI European Youth Olympic Summer Festival 2022 Banská Bystrica will begin. Several challenges await the organisers, the EYOF will be green and wants to be the leading sport event in Slovakia in the field of sustainability promotion.

The EYOF 2022 Banská Bystrica will take place at sports venues not only in Banská Bystrica, but also in Zvolen, Slovenská Ľupča, Badín and Detva. In the city under the Urpín mountain, the ice stadium, venue for the gymnastics competitions next summer, and the athletics and football stadium SNP are currently being reconstructed. The modernisation of the sports hall in Detva will start soon, and minor modifications of other sports grounds are also being prepared.

“All investment actions in the sports infrastructure continue according to the established schedule. All processes are set so that we can organise the EYOF,” said the Mayor of Banská Bystrica and the President of the Organising Committee Ján Nosko during the media breakfast.

THE CHALLENGE OF ACCOMMODATION AND SECURITY

A big challenge for the organisers will be to solve the issue of accommodation for the almost 7000 accredited persons. Rooms will be prepared for the athletes at the Banská Bystrica dormitories.

The coronavirus pandemic has prepared further challenges for the organising committee. Today, no one has any idea what the situation will look like in a year’s time and what the measures will be. The organisers are also preparing for the bubble system, which has already been tried out at several sporting events and will be tested on a large scale at the Tokyo Olympics.

“We will be the first summer sporting event of this scale in Europe after the pandemic. We are discussing how to prepare the event to meet all the hygiene and safety criteria. They are complex and difficult topics, there are no manuals on them and we are all waiting to see how the Tokyo Olympics will turn out. We will transfer many things to Slovakia after they are over,” said Jozef Liba, Secretary General of the Slovak Olympic and Sports Committee.

OPENING CEREMONY AT THE SNU MEMORIAL

It is already clear that the opening ceremony will take place on 24 July 2022 at the Slovak National Uprising Memorial. Big ceremonies are usually held in the main stadiums, but in Banská Bystrica a different form has been chosen. “We discussed it for a long time, we considered several options. The space in front of the memorial came out as the best form of presentation of Banská Bystrica and Slovakia,” explained Peter Hamaj, the executive director of the organising committee.

THE EYOF WILL BE GREEN AND WILL BE SHOWN TO PEOPLE OF BANSKÁ BYSTRICA

The EYOF will also try to be as nature-friendly as possible with the support of the Minister of Environment Ján Budajthe organisers are trying to promote sustainability in all areas of preparation. “We are thinking about the environment. Even in the public tenders we carry out, there are sustainability conditions. For example, there is a condition that it should be made of 80 percent sustainable materials in the clothing for volunteers,” Peter Hamaj added to the information.

The current pandemic situation was not conducive to organising mass actions. The aim of the organising committee is to make the city alive with EYOF not only during the days of July next year, but long in advance. That is why they are preparing an event on 24th July, where they will present the mascot and start the one-year countdown.

“We have a number of activities lined up, we want to show the people of the city that the EYOF is not just about sport. We are preparing an interesting programme for children, youth and adults. We will reveal the details in the coming days. Tickets for the event will be available by lottery,” said Lukáš Donoval, marketing director of EYOF 2022 Banská Bystrica.