Main venue of Olympic Festival opens in Tbilisi
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A state-of-the-art sports complex has opened in Georgia’s capital ahead of the European Youth Olympic Games (EYOF).
Georgian officials and sporting experts attended today the opening ceremony of the New Tbilisi, main venue for the most of the sports activities of Olympic Festival. The country’s Prime Minister noted the new facility would bring great benefits to the capital city and Georgia as a whole in the future.
The complex was specifically created for the upcoming EYOF, which will see about 4,000 young athletes from 49 countries come to Georgia to participate in the competition.
Georgia's Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and Tbilisi Mayor Davit Narmania together with the young sportsmen. Photo from the PM's Press Office.
The new complex featured four facilities – an Olympic standard swimming pool, gymnastics arena, two volleyball halls and a new athletics stadium – that will be utilised during the 13th annual competition.
At the opening ceremony Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said now this facility was completed, preparation activities for the 13th EYOF were coming to an end.
Georgia will host a large-scale sporting event very soon. Despite the fact that Georgia is a country of great sporting traditions, such a representative international sports event has never been held in Georgia before.”
"This year our country will host 4,000 sportsmen from about 50 countries and will become a European capital of sport world during the [European Youth] Olympic Games,” he said.
The PM believed the EYOF would help raise the global awareness of Georgia and he said there was growing investment potential in the Digomi area where the New Tbilisi complex was built.
This is an ecologically clean district which further motivates private investors [to invest in the future projects in this area]. The sport complex and infrastructure that was created for the Olympic Games enables us to hold different international tournaments in the future as well,” Garibashvili said.
Looking ahead Georgian and foreign athletes will be able to use the complex for trainings.
People in southern Georgia are among the first in the country to be given the rare opportunity to see the Olympic flame.
The Olympic flame for the 2015 European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) has landed in Georgia’s seaside city Batumi ahead of the Tbilisi 2015 torch relay after being flown from Athens, Greece.
A group representing the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are in Georgia to discuss how the country will host the European Youth Olympic Festival next year, in which more than 4,000 athletes from 49 countries are expected to participate.
Representatives of the upcoming Youth Olympic Games have met with Georgian leader and inspected the facilities that will be used in the July 2015 international festival, where more than 4,000 athletes from 49 countries are expected to participate.