Prague, Nov 3 (CTK) – The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) executive board presented a new brand named the Olympic Festival inspired by a Czech idea of Olympic parks, engaging visitors in sports, at a meeting of the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) in Prague on Friday.
Several countries should join the pilot project during the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.
The Olympic park had its premiere in Prague’s Letna district in 2014, when fans could watch live broadcasting from the competitions in Sochi. They were also able to try different winter sports and meet successful national team members.
Last year, during the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, there was a main park in Lipno, South Bohemia, and other parks in Pardubice, East Bohemia, Ostrava, North Moravia, and Plzen, West Bohemia. A total of about one million people visited and made use of them. About three quarters were families with children.
The Czech idea of getting fans involved in the Olympics in their home countries has become popular abroad. This is why we are bringing a new concept of the Olympic Festival in order to introduce it across the world, IOC official James MacLeod said during the ANOC meeting.
Olympic festivals will be organised by the national committees during the Olympics, promoting the games and celebrating Olympic athletes.
The pilot programmes will begin abroad during the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
“They will definitely be in France, Italy and in our country, perhaps in Finland as well,” said Jiri Kejval, chairman of the Czech Olympic Committee (COV).
The Czechs will prepare a handbook for the festival, which will be distributed by the IOC to the other countries.
The IOC gave the Czech idea common rules, based on which Olympic parks will have to operate across the world. There will be no economic profit in it for the Czech side, as we are not a commercial organisation, Kejval said.
