Two years ago today we were in Sarajevo & East Sarajevo for the start of the EYOF 2019 Winter European Youth Olympic Festival.
Some places you visit stay with you long after you leave, and Bosnia and Herzegovina is definitely one of them.
It didn’t matter who you spoke to – volunteers, taxi drivers, people you’d meet in the streets – they were all genuinely interested in knowing how the event was progressing and being perceived. After all the hardships of the recent past and the lingering tensions, what the area needed most of all was for the event to go off without a hitch to provide a ray of hope for the future.
The local organisers pulled it off, hosting a tremendous event for Europe’s best young athletes that truly exemplified the phrase “using sport for the betterment of humanity.”
The NOC of BiH and the two cities of Sarajevo & East Sarajevo won a Peace and Sport Award for Diplomatic Action of the Year for their efforts, an honour that was richly deserved.
MSM is proud to have played a small role in making this edition of the EYOF such a success, although it goes without saying that we took away a great deal more than we left behind.