The first Olympic Games of the 21st century and of the 3rd millennium, the 2004 Athens Olympics link the future and the past, as they seek to rediscover their true self in the land that brought them into being. With their return to Greece, the Olympic Games come back to their historical home and seek to give new meaning to the Olympic Ideals.
Every city and every country that undertakes to host the Olympic Games - the greatest sporting event in the world - can, indeed should, seek to draw attention to its cultural profile and highlight its most authentic aspects.
For other cities and countries that have hosted the Games, the cultural aspect of the event and its preparations were, of course, a very important, but nonetheless secondary, issue. However, for Athens and for Greece, the Cultural Olympiad spanning the four-year period from 2001 to 2004 is more than a secondary aspect of the preparation for the Olympics; rather, it is part of its essence.
For the great majority of Greeks, the Olympic Games to be held in Athens mark the end of a much longer event: the Cultural Olympiad. How, then, is the Cultural Olympiad to be summed up?
it is an international institution
it sends out a message to the world
it is a contest of cultural creativity, and
it is a bridge that brings peace and reconciliation to the peoples of the world.
It is our ambition to make the Cultural Olympiad a permanent institution based in ancient Olympia. It will be a custodian of the ideals of peace, fair play, creativity, and the universality of man. The cultural Olympiad, working closely alongside the International Olympic Committee and the Athens 2004 Committee, is linked to UNESCO, the UN, and all the countries of the world. It is in this context that the International Foundation of the Olympiad was set up in 1998 by Juan Antonio Samarang, Federico Major, and the Greek minister of culture Evangelos Venizelos.
Back in November 1997, the summit meeting of UNESCO unanimously welcomed co-operation with the Cultural Olympiad organised by Greece, while the Foundation was given official approval in early 1999.
The Cultural Olympiad is more than just another festival. Moreover, it is goes beyond any national and, indeed, Helleno-centric programme. It is an event of global significance which is based in Greece and on the 2004 Olympics.
While Greece is to be the geographical location of the Cultural Olympiad, it is hoped that the event will make its presence felt in all the continents of the world and, as far as possible, in all the countries that participate in the Olympics. Consequently, it is only natural that the Cultural Olympiad will focus on the symbolic and communicative significance of its cultural events, rather than simply on their quantity.
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