It is with great pleasure that I am here with you today at the Chirio Stadium for the 67th Cyprus High School and Technical and Vocational Education and Training Schools (TESEK) Student Athletics Games and I share these beautiful moments. After two years of inactivity, it is very important that we are organizing these games this year. In fact, we take this opportunity to show that sport and especially athletics is one of the best ways we have to overcome this disease and epidemic and many other social diseases and bad influences.
Dear students, athletes,
The approach of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth is that through sports and classical sports in particular we help you, in your own way, to form your own complete, healthy and solid personality and perspective in life. In the face of all the current challenges, the problems in society, the ongoing effects of the Turkish occupation in our country, the pandemic that has plagued us so much, but also the war and the drama in Ukraine that we are watching with pain, sport can provide answers and strengthen people's response.
The Ministry will continue to support and strengthen the involvement with sport, aspiring to promote it to our young people as a way of life, because we all know that it can give answers to the pathologies that unfortunately will always exist in society and helps to develop integrated personalities.
These games, as every year, are dedicated to the late Antonis Papadopoulos, a great figure of sport, education and our society in general.
These games, as every year, are dedicated to the late Antonis Papadopoulos, a great figure of sport, education and our society in general. For Antonis Papadopoulos, himself a gifted and exceptional athlete in his youth, was not only a pioneer of school sports at the Ministry of Education, he was previously a fighter for the freedom of Cyprus, through EOKA's struggle for self-determination-Union, on the side of his friend Gregory Afxentios, and in general he was a complete personality who exuded ethos and promoted militancy. As Head of Physical Education from 1969, he became a carrier of the Sports Idea in Cyprus and contributed greatly to the establishment of school sports. Fittingly and justly, therefore, our student games are dedicated to him.
I think it is superfluous at this time, when I am among the leadership of COEAS (Cyprus Amateur Athletics Federation of Athletics), whom I welcome, the staff of the Ministry of Physical Education, your Physical Education teachers and so many talented and dedicated athletes, to extol the benefits of sports education. That is, how beneficial are the sporting ideals and the principles and values of fair play, fair play and mutual respect, the awareness that with ethics we must both win on the track and accept the victory of others, and certainly exercise and physical well-being, which verifies man's eternal goal of a healthy mind in a healthy body.
I will only recall that we especially, being heirs of the classical Greek heritage, from ancient times and the birth and establishment of sport and Olympism, certainly have a special connection and relationship with this now universal human value legacy and heritage. However, it is not enough to feel proud as 'heirs', but we must experience this heritage and make it our daily possession in the modern world. We must not forget that sport and physical activity provide solutions to many of the problems and answers to many of the challenges of our time. But they also have their spiritual impact and help you to build a well-rounded personality. Moreover, your participation today is also the completion of an arduous training effort and so it is both satisfaction and joy. So enjoy these beautiful moments today here at the Chirio.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the authorities of Olympia Gymnastics Club and Chirio for hosting these games. At the same time, however, I must point out that today only this stadium is suitable for the organisation of sports competitions and this is not something that can be accepted. So I want to underline that, after a recent meeting held under the presidency of the President of the Republic himself, Mr. Nicos Anastasiades - who also shows personal interest - it was decided to reconstruct the athletics track at the GSP, which will start immediately, but also immediately after the reconstruction of the athletics track at Paphiakos and GSZ. On behalf of the Ministry of Defence, I would like to thank the Government for this much-needed decision. Because it is not enough just to have very good sports facilities in our schools, but we certainly need functional stadiums for athletics.
We all recently enjoyed the band of the Limassol Music School that played for the Games and I would like to take this opportunity to underline that the Ministry of Education is proud of the quality and performance of both our music and sports schools, secondary schools and high schools, and intends to continue to strengthen and upgrade them.
With these thoughts, congratulating you for all your efforts and preparation so far and knowing that now is the time to fight the good fight and see your efforts pay off in speed and road endurance, in successful shots and big jumps, I declare the 67th Student Games open and wish all of you good luck!
IP
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