THE 41st SEMINAR OF THE EUROPEAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEES IN ŠAMORÍN

With the one-year postponement, the 41st seminar of the European Olympic Committees (EOC) took place at the Olympic Training Centre in Šamorín from Wednesday. The traditional meeting of presidents, general secretaries and representatives of national Olympic committees from 50 European countries was held in hybrid form for the first time. Delegates took the opportunity to join the meeting online from home.

The seminar was opened by Jozef Liba, Secretary General of the Slovak Olympic and Sports Committee, Spyros Capralos, President of the European Olympic Committees, and Ivan Husár, State Secretary for Sports.

“I would like to express my deep gratitude to our hosts from the Slovak Olympic and Sports Committee for organising this important event in a difficult period,” said Spyros Capralos, who came to the seminar for the first time as President of the EOC, in his introductory speech.

The seminar was dominated by two main topics: “Following Tokyo 2020” and “The best way to the future”. The Secretary General of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOV) Gunilla Lindberg and Toshio Tsurunaga, Head of the IOC Services for the Games and Relations with National Olympic Committees, have comprehensively assessed the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, with particular emphasis on measures taken to overcome the COVID-19 challenges.

Although Tsurunaga admitted a number of problems that occurred at postponed Games, he concluded: “In general, I think the Games were very successful, especially in the conditions in which we worked. The lessons learned from Tokyo 2020 are already being applied in preparation for the upcoming Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games.”

Subsequently, attention was focused on the great performance of European athletes in Tokyo in 2020. The EOC Sports Director Peter Brüll provided a general overview of the results and stated that athletes won 40 of the 50 European National Olympic Committees, representing almost half (48.43%) of the totalling number of medals.

Athletes are centre of sports

During the second day of the seminar, the best practices of the EOC Athletes’ Commission were discussed. “Top sport is mainly about athletes. They are in the centre of sports. Therefore, they need to be more involved in the decision-making process,” said Gerd Kanter, chairman of the EOC Athletes’ Commission. “It is important for athletes to have a voice because it is in terms of competition that they can tell us how things can improve.”

The third panel discussion of the two-day seminar was on Marketing and Communication and included information on useful tools for national sports committees and best practices.

At the end, the organisers of the following events presented themselves

The EOC sporting events focused on the 3rd European Games in Krakow and Lesser Poland and on the forthcoming European Youth Olympic Festivals (EYOF) in Vuokatti and Banská Bystrica. Joseph Cassar, chairman of the coordination commission, Peter Hamaj, chairman of the organising committee, and Petra Gantnerová, director of the international department of the Slovak Olympic and Sports Committee (SOSC), informed on behalf of the Slovak event, the latter had the whole Šamorín seminar under the organising baton and listened words of praise from the direct participants at its end, so as did the moderator Danka Barteková.

The European Olympic Family will meet next on 11 and 12 June 2022 at the General Assembly in Skopje, Northern Macedonia.