The opportunity to spend 14 days in Ancient Olympia with 180 other Olympic Junkies from all around the world isn’t something that comes your way every day, so when the British Olympic Foundation invited me to be one of two British representatives at the Young Participations session of the International Olympic Academy (IOA), I leapt at the chance!
Kitted out in a GB tracksuit (and the closest I’ll ever come to feeling like an Olympic athlete) we left Heathrow to spend 2 days in Athens and 12 days in Olympia studying the history of the Games, exploring the theme ‘From Athens to Beijing’ and meeting people from the widest possible range of cultures.
I was ashamed to admit to myself that I was relying on all the other delegates speaking English as my knowledge of other languages is limited to “Ou sont les toilettes?” and as a result I was a little concerned that I might struggle to communicate with many of the other participants. I realised that there was no need to worry (and was even more ashamed of my appalling language skills) when the first person I met spoke 4 languages fluently! It was on the first night, talking to those first few people, that I set my 2012 challenge to join in and learn another language before the London Games!
Two days and a good deal of Athenian sight-seeing later we made the 5 hour journey to the International Olympic Academy. The IOA is a permanent complex which specialises in Olympic Education and spreading the Olympic spirit around the world. The Academy is based in Ancient Olympia, the birth place of the Ancient Olympic Games, where whole sections of the 2000 year old original structures as well as the track still remain today – quite a credit to Olympic heritage as well as Greek engineering.
Over the next ten days we attended a number of lectures by Olympic experts from all over the world, shared our thoughts and opinions in mixed discussion groups, took part in a huge range of cultural and sporting activities (Testing our abilities to demonstrate fair play - I played in my first every volleyball match!) and shared countless personal experiences and aspirations with each other.
With so many people representing so many different countries I wasn’t sure I could realistically expect us all to get along – but how wrong I was. Never before have I met such an accepting and welcoming group of people, entirely free from discrimination and arrogance, I truly have made friends for life. What united us was sport – whilst our individual involvements in sport and the Olympic movement are varied (our group comprised Olympic and Paralympic athletes, coaches, medical staff, teachers etc…) we have all been inspired by sport and have our own unique stories to tell.
Hearing so many different stories and experiences forced me to examine my own opinions and reflect on how the Olympic Movement has and can impact on London, the UK and the rest of the world from now, through to 2012 and beyond.
