EOC Watchdog Chief Reviews Minsk 2019 Preps

(ATR) European Games executive director Simon Clegg says he is "encouraged" by progress across the project following his first official trip to Minsk.

After a five-day visit to the Belarusian capital, the former Baku 2015 chief operating officer expressed satisfaction with the pace of preparations for the European Olympic Committees flagship multisports event.

"After visiting every competition and training venue I am confident that Belarus has the necessary sporting infrastructure and personnel to deliver an excellent European Games next year," he said.

Clegg, who took up his European Games role last week, had meetings with Belarus deputy prime minister Vasily Zharko, sports minister Sergey Kovalchuk and George Katulin, CEO of the Minsk European Games Organising Committee (MEGOC). He also met individually with the heads of each of the organizing committees functional areas.

"The venues look very impressive indeed, many having been built for the 2014 World Ice Hockey Championships, providing excellent spectator capacities and adjacent training facilities," Clegg said.

"Renovations on the few facilities requiring it are well advanced and I’m confident that the field of play will be excellent for the athletes and provide a great broadcasting backdrop."

Clegg’s new role will see him regularly inspecting Games progress in Belarus until the second edition of the EOC’s premier event opens next year. A total of 4,082 athletes drawn from all the EOC’s 50 member NOCs will compete in 15 sports – 91 men’s events, 89 women’s events and 21 mixed events – at Minsk 2019, with 10 of them serving as Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifiers.

Prior to Clegg’s visit, the EOC’s Minsk 2019 coordination commission chair Spyros Capralos and organizing committee chief Katulin had presented a progress report to the 39th EOC Seminar & IOC Forum meeting in Belgrade.

Minsk 2019 tells Around the Rings that the organizing committee has grown to 110 staff ahead of the year-to-go mark on June 21. Capralos and some of his EOC coordination commission colleagues are scheduled to visit Minsk around this milestone in Games preparations.

MEGOC has successfully signed sponsorship agreements with leading national companies: PriorBank - official banking services supplier; SportPari – lottery; Velcom - official mobile telephony supplier; SP&P - official legal services supplier.

Ticketpro.by is the official ticket operator. A ticket will serve as a valid visa to enter Belarus from June 10 to July 10, 2019 .

Key dates ahead for Minsk 2019 organizers and Europe’s NOCs are the July 9-13 chefs de mission workshops staged to brief them on all aspects of the Games.

The full EOC coordination commission led by Capralos will visit Minsk for a check-up on preparations from Sept. 6-9.

Reported by Mark Bisson

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