Your Excellency Mr President of the United States of Mexico,
Vicente Fox Quesada,
Your Excellency Mr Mayor of Mexico City, Andrés Manuel
López Obrador,
Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the IOC, I wish to warmly thank our Mexican friends
for their excellent hospitality.
The Olympic Movement owes a debt of gratitude to Mexico.
Their athletes have won 10 gold medals, and 15 silver and 23
bronze medals at the Olympic Games.
Mexico staged marvellous Olympic Games in 1968, and the
memories of these and the football World Cups in 1970 and 1986
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will remain with us for ever. Few countries can boast such a
contribution to world sport.
It is likewise a pleasure for me to greet Mexico’s great sports
leaders.
President Ruben Acosta expertly leads the International Volleyball
Federation. President Olegario Vázquez Raña does the same, at
the International Shooting Sport Federation. Our colleague Pedro
Rámirez Vázquez has left us an extraordinary legacy with
Olympic House in Vidy and the Olympic Museum. Dr Eduardo
Hay has played a key role in the Medical Commission alongside
Prince Alexandre de Merode.
I wish also to thank the President of the Mexican Olympic
Committee, Felipe Munoz Kapamas, an Olympic champion at the
Games in Mexico City, and all his staff, for their support.
Of course, on behalf of us all, I extend my warmest thanks to our
host, Mario Vázquez Raña, President of ANOC, who has
contributed so much to the development of the Olympic
Movement.
Thank you, dear colleagues, for your legendary generosity.
Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The 114th IOC Session will be a particularly important one. It
will enable us to take the measures needed to ensure the future
development of the IOC and the Olympic Movement.
Studying the various audits on the IOC administration will allow
us to become more efficient.
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Pursuing the reforms initiated in 1999 will make our institution
even more transparent, modern and democratic.
Assessing how to reduce the size and cost of the Games is
necessary for these to be staged under optimum conditions in the
future.
Examining the Olympic programme, which the IOC needs to do at
regular intervals, will enable us to maintain interest in the
Olympic Games worldwide.
I am counting on numerous interventions from you, dear
colleagues, to enrich these debates.
Dear Colleagues, sport is a great social movement and cannot
remain isolated from the problems of society.
Thirty years ago, the Games were hit by the massacre in Munich.
Six years ago, a bomb attack marred the Games in Atlanta.
The IOC wishes to pay a renewed tribute to these innocent
victims.
The events in Munich, those of 11 September and the reemergence
of international terrorism make security the number
one priority for any sports organisation.
Let us rejoice in the knowledge that, while terrorism seeks to bring
peoples, cultures and religions into conflict, and the risk of armed
conflict in the world remains acute, sport showed in Salt Lake
City, and will do so again in the future, that it is a factor of
universality and brotherhood. While we cannot escape the turmoil
of society, we can give the world the values that inspire us.
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The serious economic crisis that we are currently experiencing is
also affecting sport and its funding. The IOC has been spared this,
thanks to the visionary policy of President Juan Antonio
Samaranch and his Executive Board colleagues, which enabled
long-term contracts to be signed.
The IOC is nonetheless very concerned about the difficulties that
many sports organisations, International Federations and National
Olympic Committees are currently facing in finding the funds they
need for their development. The IOC has a duty to help its
partners.
In the mid to long term, the policy of cost-cutting and reducing the
size of the Olympic Games should allow us to free up more
revenue for the Olympic family.
The policy of solidarity geared towards developing countries and
sports with less media coverage should be continued.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Colleagues,
In spite of this difficult economic, political and social
environment, sport, I am certain, will remain popular and continue
to impart its beneficial educational values to young people.
But to maintain this eminent role for sport, we have to meet
various challenges. Sport will have a social value and can transmit
its own values only if it respects the rules f ethics and retains a
humanist dimension.
We must continue to fight fiercely against doping. The IOC
showed its determination at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City,
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by tripling the number of tests and punishing more athletes at
these Games than in the previous 18 editions.
The IOC will use all its strength to support the development of the
World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), as this strategy alone will
enable us to make our fight more effective. To achieve this,
WADA will have to ensure its own funding, and governments
must face up to their responsibilities in this area.
WADA must also succeed in its efforts to harmonise rules. I call
upon all the members of the Olympic family and all governments
to join forces in this vital task. There should be no place at the
Games for those who do not wish to fight alongside us.
A growing number of disputes are casting doubts over the quality
of the decisions of referees and judges.
The IOC calls on all the International Federations to be
particularly vigilant in this area, which is their responsibility.
I thank those International Federations which have made a special
effort to improve refereeing and judging. This is the price to pay
in order to regain the confidence of the public and the athletes.
The Olympic Movement must show no mercy in dealing with any
form of corruption or manipulation in this area.
It also has a major responsibility in terms of protecting the health
of athletes, which is being endangered by an unreasonable
increase in the number of sports competitions or by overtraining.
The IOC Medical Commission is exemplary in the way it is
addressing this with its counterparts in the International
Federations and National Olympic Committees.
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The Olympic Movement also has a responsibility, one shared by
the athletes themselves, to tackle the issue of social reintegration
at the end of their sports career. Numerous efforts are being made
in this area by governments, National Olympic Committees, the
International Federations and the World Olympians Association.
The IOC will play its part in these initiatives.
Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Sport is a formidable educational tool for young people. It
strengthens the body and mind; it inculcates a sense of
community; it teaches respect for authority and refereeing
decisions; it offers health, identity and hope. It integrates
minorities into society. For these values alone, it deserves the
support of society.
Sport nonetheless also has a higher dimension derived from values
and ethics, which transcends its social relevance.
Sport is also built of brotherhood, universality, respect for others,
justice and generosity. These are the values that we all have a
duty to defend.
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