Athletes Will Have Anti-Covid Playbooks in Spanish

(ATR) The Anti-Covid Playbooks for Athletes and Officials will also be translated into Spanish, said a spokesman for the International Olympic Committee to a question from Around the Rings.

Today the National Olympic Committees of Ibero-America join this effort.

Any possibility that makes it easier to globalize this message and communicate more effectively at this crucial moment in the fight against the pandemic is welcome.

It is a necessity that each member of each of the Latin American delegations have in their backpack (and in mind) the guide for personal action in the face of the health emergency in Japan, and if it is in their language, so much the better.

The Playbooks are the foundation of the collective plan to ensure that all participants in the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games and the people of Tokyo and Japan are safe and healthy this summer.

These texts, through the Internet or in print, should reach not only the Olympic athletes and other personnel in Tokyo, but also the sports family in general in each country as part of a health culture that will rule the "post-COVID" world.

Vazquez Raña Sent Suggestion to the IOC

This decision also brought to mind the importance of the Spanish language in the International Olympic Movement.

ATR learned that last July, on the eve of the 136th Session of the IOC (virtual), the representative of the IOC in Mexico, Olegario Vázquez Raña, sent President Thomas Bach a letter proposing to consider the Spanish language as the third official language of the Olympic organization along with English and French.

Vázquez Raña and Bach coincided as athletes in the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games, the first competing in the shooting tournament and the second in the fencing tournament where he won a gold medal. Now in 2021 it will be 40 years since they met for the first time at an Olimpic Summit. At the Baden Baden Congress,Vázquez Raña attended as the new president of the International Shooting Union while Bach was chosen for the first IOC Athletes Commission.

In September 2018, on the way to the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, Bach made an historic visit to Mexico and the Mexican Olympic Committee, and together with Vázquez Raña, held talks with then-president-elect Andrés Manuel López Obrador who pledged to support sport in that country like never before.

According to the letter to Bach to which ATR had access, Vázquez Raña said that he had reactivated this aspiration of the NOCs of Ibero-America after learning about the agreement that in those days had been adopted by the International Sports Arbitration Council (CIAS), an organ of government of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), on the use of Spanish in its arbitration proceedings.

He claimed that he had also encouraged his proposal on the Centennial of the birth of IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch Torelló.

He estimated that despite the global crisis that is being faced as a result of the pandemic, for the NOCs of Latin America receiving the documents in Spanish will serve for a more accurate dissemination of the messages of Olympism, at the same time that this process would have less costs.

He considered in his letter that the safety and well-being of the athletes are "our main priorities" at this time but that at the same time the acceptance of the Spanish language would also be an incentive to the NOCs of Latin America, a region that has been the epicenter of the pandemic.

About 600 million speak Spanish in the world, which is the official language in more than 20 countries and the third for its use in international communication.

The United States has 57.6 million Spanish speakers, the second country in the world in number behind Mexico.

More and more international organizations and international sports federations have increased its use. Today Spanish is the second language of communication on the Internet.

Vázquez Raña, who is an Honorary Member of the IOC, recalled that when he was elected president of the International Shooting Union on February 14, 1980, Spanish also began to be used as a working language in his federation.

ATR learned that the IOC "took note" of the Mexican Olympic leader's proposal but due to the date it was received it was impossible to include it on the Executive Commission's agenda last July.

The Honorary Lifetime President of the Mexican Olympic Committee turned 85 on December 10, but this time the celebration was reduced to numerous congratulations over the phone and virtual messages.

The serious epidemiological situation in his country and his age, which makes him vulnerable, has forced him to stay in his home for almost a year. From there he monitors the progress of his companies and the Mexican Olympic sport in daily telephone contact with the president of COM, Carlos Padilla.

Days ago, Vázquez Raña supported the request of the Mexican Olympic Committee to the authorities of the country to guarantee the vaccination process for Mexican athletes with a view to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, sources around him told ATR.

Written and reported by Miguel Hernandez

For general comments or questions,click here.

Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.