Paris, October 21 {No.98-236} - Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), today addressed UNESCO’s Executive Board after signing, with the Organization’s Director-General, Federico Mayor, a co-operation agreement aiming to promote Olympic education and the culture of peace and to encourage physical activity in schools.

Believing that all human beings have a right to aspire to harmonious development in which education, both physical and intellectual, training and the safeguarding of cultural heritage are primordial, the IOC and UNESCO signed an agreement to reinforce the co-operation they first launched in 1984.

Welcoming Mr Samaranch, Pál Pataki, Chairman of the Executive Board, recalled that within the United Nations system, “it is UNESCO which is in charge of sport, physical education and sports education.” He pointed out that both organisations were of a common mind that “the objective of the Olympic movement is to place sport within the reach of all everywhere so as to create a peaceful society.”

Mr Mayor declared: “The stakes of sport are considerable, the stakes of victory too. Hence the temptation to cheat with nature, with ethics, with fair play. ... Must victory be obtained at all cost? No. We wish to reaffirm the inviolability of the ethical values of sport, of its humanist ideal and its irreplaceable role in forming human beings. We must learn to lose. We must also learn to win, which may be more difficult. We must fight with equal arms.” Mr Mayor recalled that UNESCO has been committed to the fight against performance enhancing drugs since a resolution adopted by its General Conference in 1989. He echoed the great hope set by the World Conference on Doping in Sport to take place in Lausanne (Switzerland) next February under the aegis of the IOC and which will enable UNESCO to reaffirm its principles on this issue.

“Sport is an element of democracy building, of the invisible democracy,” Mr Mayor continued, “physical education is based on a humanist and universal concept.” For the year 2000, International Year for A Culture of Peace, which will also see the XXVII Olympiad take place in Sydney, both organisations have decided to act together to respect the Olympic truce, notably through a joint youth peace project.

Juan Antonio Samaranch recalled that the IOC was one of the oldest international organisation, founded in 1894 at the Sorbonne University in Paris by Pierre de Coubertin, and one of the largest as it links 198 national committees world-wide. “The IOC is ready to boost its co-operation with UNESCO,” he said. “We fully subscribe to your mission to promote a culture of peace. Let us join sport, culture and education. ... UNESCO can help us promote the Olympic spirit in primary and secondary schools.”

Stressing that “everybody has the right to exercise leisure and sporting activities,” the IOC President highlighted that Olympic solidarity “aims to help athletes from poor countries participate fully - that is, with the possibility of winning medals - in the Games.” He added that “At the Olympic Games in Atlanta, of the 197 taking part, 69 had won at least one medal.”

Mr Samaranch announced that an international centre for the Olympic truce will be established in 1999 with the co-operation of the Greek government and that the IOC would propose a UNESCO representative for its board of directors. In the year 2000, the IOC will organise an Olympic Art and Sport competition which will be open to athletes and fine arts students from all over the world. He hoped that UNESCO would co-operate with the project through its national commissions and associated schools.

Mr Samaranch finally presented the three aims of the Lausanne Conference: to establish a clear definition of doping; to create an anti-doping agency to be in charge of control and tests and to establish the responsibility of countries (governments, sports federations etc.) in doping so as to co-ordinate the struggle against performance enhancing drugs.