Olympic Day, 23 June, is a unique, global event held every year. National Olympic Committees (NOC) around the world share this universal festivity with their respective communities, making it the most celebrated Olympic event after the Olympic Games.

 

Since 1948, Olympic Day has served to celebrate the anniversary of the International Olympic Committee, created on 23 June 1894, and the revival of the Olympic Games. In 1987, the Olympic Day Run was introduced to build a programme of sporting and educational actions around this anniversary, with the objective of getting as many people as possible across the globe moving and experiencing the Olympic values of excellence, friendship and respect.      

 

Today, Olympic Day is taking a step forward to be more than just a run. Under the theme “Move, learn, discover!”, the Olympic Day concept now encourages NOCs to organise a wider range of activities inspired by the main theme, in addition to the traditional Olympic Day Run. These could include sporting events encouraging people to move and discover new sports, or Olympic education seminars and educational programmes allowing participants to learn about the Olympic values.

 

In order to support NOCs in the organisation of their Olympic Day, the IOC has produced a 2009 Olympic Day Start-up Kit, which was sent to each NOC in March. This included background history, ideas and tips for activities that could be organised, and guidelines for promoting and communicating their events. The Start-Up Kit also included a CD-ROM with a message from the IOC President, to be uploaded to web sites or played at the Olympic Day events, and Olympic Day diplomas for the participants.

 

High Expectations for 2009 

This year, more than 150 NOCs, with the support of Worldwide Olympic Partner McDonald’s, will be celebrating Olympic Day on or around 23 June, with a wide range of sporting and cultural activities aimed to attract anywhere from 100 to 100,000 participants. The NOC of Costa Rica has planned a two-day event featuring introductions to numerous sports, such as fencing, judo, basketball, archery and table tennis. In addition to the traditional Olympic Day Run, this NOC has also planned bouncy castles and pony rides for the younger participants. The NOC of Brazil is panning a full week of activities led by 11 of its Olympic athletes. In New Zealand, thousands of school children will take part in the Olympic Day Run, and, this year, they are honouring their 1,000 New Zealand Olympians with a series of commemorative celebrations around the country.

An exciting Agora was held on Tuesday evening at the Olympic Museum, entitled Beijing 2008 – the Review. The aim of the evening: to assess the positive aspects and the lessons learnt from these Games of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, and to address, among other things, the theme of the limits of sporting exploits, since there were so many world records set in various sports.

 

Alongside the two presenters, Jean-Philippe Rapp and Jean-François Develey, there were a number of top speakers: Jacques Rogge, IOC President, and Gilbert Felli, IOC Olympic Games Executive Director; Stanislas Wawrinka, Olympic doubles champion alongside Roger Federer; Anne-Caroline Chausson, Olympic BMX champion; Sergei Aschwanden, judo bronze medallist; Fabien Ohl, UNIL social sciences professor; and Pierre-Étienne Bourban, the EPFL’s Deputy Vice-President and material sciences professor.

How did the IOC President feel about these Games? Without claiming that they were the best Games ever organised (!), Jacques Rogge spoke about the Opening Ceremony’s three billion spectators, the perfect organisation, the exceptional architecture of the venues, the Olympic Village that the athletes themselves said was the best ever, the 41 world records set, etc. In short, an exceptional adventure, as confirmed by the three Olympic medallists on the stage.

The legacy of the Games was then addressed, with President Rogge underlining that the venues would serve some 100,000 students from local universities on a daily basis. Without forgetting a new airport, ring roads, new metro lines, the creation of two million jobs and almost 400 million children initiated into the Olympic values.

Also discussed was the progress made in the fight against doping, with prevention and detection methods becoming increasingly efficient. There were fewer than 10 medals withdrawn during the Games, as numerous athletes had tested positive beforehand and were therefore not allowed to compete in Beijing. The problem of security was also addressed. Recalling the Munich and Atlanta attacks, as well as the many heads of state present in the Chinese capital, Jacques Rogge said that there could never be too many security measures. Sergei Aschwanden thought that security was no tighter than in Sydney and Athens!

The final subject was new technology (new swimming pools, equipment, wetsuits and shoes, etc.) Prof. Bourdan opined that this progress was nothing new, and was likely to develop further. It certainly improved athletes’ performances, as well as their wellbeing and safety.

This Olympic Agora will be broadcast on TSR2 on Monday 20 October at 8.15 p.m.

If you want to get one of the last places for the 12th World Sport for All Congress, register now at http://www.sportforall2008.olympic.org.my.

Under the motto “Sport for All – Sport for Life”, the event will take place in Genting Highlands, Malaysia, from 3 to 6 November 2008.

Experts and participants from the Olympic family, universities, the UN system, governments and NGOs will discuss the following themes:

- Physical activity for young people
- Role of Sport for All in the world of information technology

- Sport for All’s responses to the challenges of ageing populations
- Sport for All and social justice
- Focus on the Olympic and Sports Movement’s Sport for All initiatives

How to adjust sports facilities to the needs of young people? How to advance Sport for All programmes by using different means of information technology? Ageing or inactivity: which is the villain for functional deterioration? And how to promote the Olympic values through Sport for All? These are just a few of the topics which will be addressed during lively sessions at the Congress.

Join now - registration closes on 30 September 2008.

 Learn more about the speakers and the programme

The IOC Disciplinary Commission, composed of Thomas Bach (Chairman), Denis Oswald and Gerhard Heiberg, met today in Lausanne (Switzerland) on three pending doping cases from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

The meeting was convened to deal with adverse analytical findings for Vadim DEVIATOVSKIY, Belarus, silver medallist in the men’s hammer throw competition; Ivan TSIKHAN, Belarus, bronze medallist in the men’s hammer throw competition; and Adam SEROCZYNSKI, Poland, who placed fourth in the men’s kayak double (K2) 1000m event.

The IOC Disciplinary Commission gave the two Belarusian hammer throwers the opportunity to provide further information until 17 October 2008. The decision by the IOC Disciplinary Commission will be taken once this information has been analysed.

The decision concerning the Polish canoeist will be issued by the IOC Disciplinary Commission on 8 October 2008.  

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For further information, please contact the IOC Communications Department on +41 21 621 60 00 or e-mail: pressoffice@olympic.org.

After 12 days of competition, the Closing Ceremony of the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games on 17 September 2008 officially ended a period of record-breaking competition and events.

279 world records  

Almost 4,000 athletes from a total of 147 different countries around the world came to Beijing to compete in their respective sports. Some athletes competed in more than one event, but they all participated at an elite level. Of these 147 countries, five competed in the Paralympic Games for the first time, including Burundi, Gabon, Georgia, Haiti and Montenegro. The Games saw a total of 279 new world records set and a total of 339 new Paralympic records broken.

1.9 million tickets sold  

A record number of 1.9 million tickets were sold, with an additional 600,000 tickets provided to children, educational institutes and community groups. The Opening and Closing Ceremonies were sold out, as were all the swimming events and most of the athletics events.

Out of more than 1,000 doping tests conducted, there were three anti-doping rule violations. The doping tests performed included urine (Erythropoietin, EPO) and blood tests (Human Growth Hormone (hGH), synthetic haemoglobin (HBOC), blood transfusions (BT) and other substances.