The 29th Olympic Games
In the run-up to the start of the XXVIIIth Olympiad that opens in Athens on Friday, the organizers are promoting recycling as a new sport, the 29th sport at the Olympic Games. A new television and radio ad airing this week promotes the Recycling Program in the Olympic and Paralympic Venues.
The audiovisual material presents the “sport” and the qualification requirements - passion, persistence and will, the organizing committee said. Through shots taken at the Tae Kwon Do Olympic venue in Faliro, “the genuine values that we all have to follow in order to achieve unique distinction are shown.”
The organizers are aiming to ensure all venues are litter-free, to reduce waste to be taken to the Landfill Site, to maximize waste sorting and recycling, and to inform and raise people’s awareness of environmentally sustainable waste management.
Spectators and all those participating in the Games can find pairs of bins at the Olympic and Paralympic venues - a blue one for recyclable material such as plastic bottles, plastic and paper glasses, and a green for all other waste. Coca Cola is the sponsor for both the bins and the radio and TV spots.
Alexander Chernov, who is assistant to the deputy mayor of Moscow, said that unlike their senior counterparts many will not have travelled before and the experience for them would be unforgettable.
　　”All the stadia and facilities are in place including the village,” Chernov told AFP by telephone from Moscow.
　　”We have wifi in place and the rooms for the athletes are better than many hotel rooms and believe me I have seen many hotel rooms all round the world.
　　”We would be dealing with kids, the majority of whom will never have travelled outside their village before. It will be like Christmas in August for them should the Games come to Moscow.”
　　Both Moscow and Singapore - who are judged to be the favourites to take the prize which will be announced towards the end of February after a postal vote of IOC members - beat off opposition from seven rivals including 2004 Olympic hosts Athens to make the shortlist.
　　Chernov is adamant, though, that despite Rogge’s insistence that the preferred winner should be a city that is unlikely able to ever host a senior Olympics that Moscow, having hosted the Olympics in 1980, is not out of the running.
　　”We are absolutely confident that we can win the right to host the Youth Games,” said the former soft drinks marketing director, who in his former role was involved in a former Youth Games hosted in Moscow in 1998.
　　”Only two of the original nine candidates would be judged incapable of hosting a summer Olympic Games and they were Poznan (Poland) and Debrecen (Hungary).
　　”Singapore has a population of 5million and also wields considerable power and influence. Any decision by the IOC is well thought out and of course we would accept it.”
　　Chernov was also adamant that the Muscovites - rich and poor - were fully behind the bid, a factor that weighs heavily with the IOC members.
　　”For Muscovites sports are a must,” he said. “They realise it is better for the environment and for children.
　　”Muscovites are sportsmad, even now looking out my window on the Moskva River I can see people swimming when it is -3 degrees. They simply dig a hole in the ice and go swimming!”
　　Chernov claimed that the fact the Black Sea resort of Sochi had won the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics - they won at the same IOC get together in Guatemala City where Rogge won his argument for the Youth Olympics - was a bonus rather than a drawback for their bid coming so soon after the decision.
　　”The fact that Russia was given the Winter Games is proof that the IOC have confidence in the country,” said Chernov, though, an IOC source told AFP earlier this month that several IOC members were not happy that some of those who worked on the Sochi bid were involved with the Moscow one as they had not delivered on several promises.
