On March 21 the 10th Winter Paralympics have come to its end with impressive sporting achievements and touching emotional moments. For me the Olympic Games for competitive athletes with physical disabilities are an impressive verification of how the Olympic idea continues to fascinate people since Pierre Baron de Coubertin led to the revival of the modern Games. People with disabilities overcome their handicaps, get a lot of respect, admiration, appreciation – instead of compassion.

The Olympic idea could be repeatedly threatened by negative social developments. This has shown once more the death of the Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritaschwili at the Winter Games in Vancouver one month before. But finally Coubertin’s Olympic belief that human striving is completed in a peaceful and fair competition is invincible.

I experienced directly the significance and vulnerability of the Olympic idea in Munich 1972 – encouraged by job-related conditions. As a young man keened on sports I was there when Hildegard Falck and Lasse Viren celebrated their triumphs. Like many other people I was shocked by the attack on Jewish athletes by Palestinian terrorists in the Olympic Village. Notwithstanding the pain I thought it was right that at that time the IOC President Avery Brundage demanded: “The games must go on!”

The Olympic Games don’t stand still. By the way, they were constantly inspired by German officials – for example Walther Tröger or currently Thomas Bach. The latest innovation of this dignified and ageless idea I am excited about are the Youth Olympic Games. The Youth Olympic Summer Games in Singapore this year, in 2014 in Nanjing/China, and their equivalent, the Youth Winter Games in Innsbruck in 2012, will confirm brilliantly the fascination which they hold for young people all over the world.

Speaking of Innsbruck 2012: 40 years after Munich my personal Olympic ring – so to say the sixth – could close. For some time now I’m driven by the desire to create encounters and forums that unite the international sport’s youth with the world of young choir singers in the basic idea of Olympia. Jumping and singing under the banner of fairness and understanding – that’s a wonderful alliance which could fascinate people as well as the media. For this reason INTERKULTUR is in dialogue on many different levels with persons responsible. And receives already a positive response in many cases.

Yours

President Günter Titsch