Olympia

After arriving into Dublin at 11 pm last Sunday, I had to turn around and catch a 6 am flight the following morning to Amsterdam, then on to Athens. Midway through the summer Stephen Martin, the VP of the Olympic Council of Ireland and the Chef de Mission in Sochi, had asked me to represent the Council at a European delegate meeting in Ancient Olympia, Greece. The International Olympic Academy has held numerous academic sessions over the years, and this one was centered around the first European Games taking place next year in Baku, Azerbaijan. 

I got into Athens at around 7 that evening. The Acropolis was closed by the time I got to it, so I just spent the evening wandering around elsewhere. 

The following morning I met with the rest of the European delegates and we were taken on a mini tour of Athens, stopping at the Acropolis Museum along the way. The first modern Olympic stadium, however, was my favorite. After that, we began the 4 hour bus journey to Ancient Olympia, which is close to the west coast of Greece.

The program in Ancient Olympia at the academy was quite simple. We attended lectures from 9 to 12 every day, that were given by different professors from around the world. From there, we had about 4 hours to relax by the pool and get to know one another. In the evening, we worked on our 'Team Challenge' and various workshops. We also got to visit the ruins in Olympia, some of which are over 3000 years old. Growing up, I was always fascinated with Greek and Roman history, so it was nice to experience that.

The challenge was to come up with a marketing campaign for the Baku 2015 European Games, which we presented to some of the organizers of the games on Saturday, the day before we departed. Our team didn't end up winning, but it was still a great experience. Sports marketing is a huge industry, one that I wouldn't hesitate to be a part of in the future. 

The workshops were a bit different. Each lecturer gave the different workshops a question at the end of their lecture, and we had to come up with an answer by the end of the week. My assigned question was how can you get huge MNCs to use the values of sport in their marketing campaigns? Throughout the week, the lectures and questions were quite idealistic, but I answered with the 'role model' point of view, which most companies already practice. All in all, the Olympic Academy was a great experience. I got to meet a lot of political people in the sports world and networking is always important - you can never shake too many hands.

The bus took us back to Athens yesterday evening. Again, it was too late to go to the Acropolis, so I decided to take it easy and get up early this morning to go and see it. It was only about 9 am when I got to the top, and it was already roasting! I'll let the pictures do the talking - quite incredible.

I'm currently in Amsterdam waiting for my next flight to Dublin. I'll be spending 10 more days in Ireland, before heading back to Utah on the 21st and I'm back to university on the 25th. It's been an incredible two years, traveling around the globe and meeting new people, but I guess it's time to go back to reality for a while!

/CL