EOC Chief: Baku 2015 Will Not Be Olympic Copy

(ATR)European Olympic Committee president Pat Hickey has insisted that the inaugural European Games in Baku will not be a "carbon-copy of the Olympics."

The Irish IOC member was speaking after leading the EOC executive board meeting in Lausanne on Tuesday.

After hearing updates on Baku’s preparations for the Games, which begin on June 12, Hickey was keen to stress that the event would not be trying to live up to or compete with the Olympics.

"We said a few years ago we do not wish to be a carbon copy of the Olympic Games" he said. "We want to do things differently, and we have non-Olympic events like beach soccer. We have trampolining, karate, and we’re doing many things different.

"Then, the street athletics down in the center of the city - I’ve only seen this event when it was in Manchester and it was fantastic."

Spyros Capralos, chairman of the EOC coordination commission, confirmed that three events - men's and women's pole vault and men's high jump - would make up the urban athletics.

This opens the door for a potential European Games highlight as world champion men's pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie will have a chance to overtake Sergey Bubka’s 21-year-old outdoor world record of 6.14 meters. Lavillenie beat Bubka’s indoor record last year.

Overall though, Capralos was confident in the preparations of the local organizing committee ahead of the last coordination commission visit to Baku on 4 February.

"We are very satisfied with the way Baku is progressing" he said. "The venues are astonishing, they are great venues; the construction is finally taking shape. The results systems and the scoring systems are being put in.

"The athletes’ village is something that was ready but now it is furnished and so you see everything coming together. We got a very good report from our people who were there on transportation programs and the planning and we are very confident that the Games will be a great success."

Baku 2015, who last week announced Coca-Cola as their latest sponsor, have also had their ticketing system approved by the EOC with an emphasis on offering low cost tickets to locals.

"The ticket prices are very well, very low so that gives the opportunity for many people to attend the Games and we think this is very important. It’s very important to have the stadium full of people from Azerbaijan than having high ticketed events" Capralos said.

Reported by Christian Radnedge

20 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.