MILANO (ITALPRESS) – “I declare open the 145th session of the International Olympic Committee”. This was said by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella, at the end of his speech at the opening ceremony of the “145° Session of the CIO” at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan.
“I am pleased to welcome you to Italy, in Milan, on the eve of the opening of the Winter Olympics. The Games are the universal sports event. Italy is happy to welcome the great number of athletes, coaches and technicians, spectators from all over the world will come to attend the races. We feel the responsibility, and we have passionately dealt with the commitments of preparation.”.
“We ask – with stubborn determination – that the Olympic truce is everywhere respected. Let the unarmed force of sport silence weapons. Sports has great strength in the world of global communications. The Games are an engaging tool to invoke peace and mutual understanding. We must be the peace we want to see in the world,” said Martin Luther King – added the head of the state –. From Milan and Cortina, from Bormio, from Livigno, from Anterselva, from Val di Fiemme, from Verona – which will host the opening ceremony of Paralimpiadi – sport will be proposed as a vehicle of this hope. Hope that unites the peoples of all continents.”.
“It is a great global event that launches a message at our time so difficult. Wars, lacerations to the serenity of international life, imbalances, sufferings bear darkness and hurt people’s consciences. Sport welcomes, produces joy, passion, hope. It is respect for the other. Challenge to your limits: is freedom to progress – continued the head of the state –. Sport is meeting in peace: testifies fraternity in the loyalty of the competition with others. It is the opposite of a world where barriers and incommunity prevail. It is opposed to the violence that, from whoever practises, generates other violence, trampls human dignity, oppresses peoples and makes them portray the quality of life.”.
“The Olympics are opportunities for meeting and knowledge. That athletes, technicians, managers from over ninety countries find themselves together is condition that it is not limited to the sports dimension” added Mattarella. “The Olympic values of loyalty, inclusion, fraternity are values that the Italian Republic has made its own since its foundation, eighty years ago,” he concluded.
MALAGO’ “IL MESSAGGIO DI PACE RISUONERA’ IN OGNI ANGOLO DEL MONDO”
“In a few hours we will light the Olympic braziers and embrace the world, fully aware that the Italian Winter Games coincide with one of the most difficult and complex moments of recent global history. This makes them even more significant and important. I am convinced that the message of peace, brotherhood and fair competition transmitted by athletes and the whole Olympic family, from the magnificent stage of our cities and mountains, will resonate strongly in every corner of the world.” Thus the president of the Fondazione Milano-Cortina, Giovanni Malagò, during his speech at the opening ceremony of the “145° Session of the CIO” at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, in the presence of the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. “The theatre that hosts us this evening represents a global symbol of excellence in music and arts. A monument in which a universal language resounds at its highest level, surpassing every barrier and speaking to peoples around the world. This same sense of universality defines the International Olympic Committee and the commitment shown by each of you. La Scala thus becomes the symbol of what the Italian Winter Games will offer to athletes, the Olympic family and spectators in the coming days, starting from the Opening Ceremony of 6 February at the San Siro Stadium.
“Milano Cortina 2026 is a global event that promotes sport, its values and its extraordinary ability to unite people. It is also an exceptional showcase of Italian excellence in culture, art, landscape, quality of life, craftsmanship that distinguish us and in our long tradition of hospitality” said Malagò. “Milano Cortina 2026 is a shared and widespread edition of the Olympic Games and looks to the future: two cities, two regions, two autonomous provinces. A rich mosaic of people, cultures and languages that have found, in the very nature of the Games and in the immense work necessary to organize them, a moment of extraordinary unity and harmony”.
-Photo press office Quirinale-
(ITALPRESS).
