The city which will host the General Assembly of the European Olympic Committees (EOC) in 2016 has been announced at 44th EOC General Assembly in Prague, with representatives of European NOCs preferring Minsk
NOC building in Minsk
The preliminary application included three countries: Armenia, Belarus and Malta. The final list of contenders was announced on November 21st and Yerevan and Minsk were competing for the right to host the event. The President of the National Olympic Committee of Armenia, Garik Tsarukyan, notes in his speech that because of the friendly relations with and respect for Belarus’ NOC President Alexander Lukashenko, Armenia withdraws its bid in favour of Belarus. The Vice President of the Belarusian National Olympic Committee, Maxim Ryzhenkov, held a presentation — Minsk-2016 — for the participants of the General Assembly. Then a voting procedure took place after which the Belarusian application was announced as the winner. EOC President Patrick Hickey noted that Minsk will be hosting the General Assembly and assured that it will be an important and memorable visit to the Belarusian capital for the whole European Olympic family because Minsk has already successfully hosted a number of large-scale sports events, including the 2014 IIHF World Championship.
The Prague has also hosted a working meeting of the Belarusian delegation with the President of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas Bach, who said that he would like to visit Minsk in 2016 as part of the General Assembly. Mr. Bach is also eager to meet legendary Belarusian fencers, Alexander Romankov and Yelena Belova, with whom he competed at the Olympic Games.
By Igor Grishin
