Following his re-election at the head of the National Olympic Committee of Belarus, Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko said that the European Games in Belarus will be held at the highest level, with Belarus aiming to field the strongest possible team.

“I will reiterate that the European Games should be held at the highest level. Equally important is to provide good results in front of the domestic audience,” he said.

Belarus has hosted many international sports events in the past, and has thus gained a good deal of experience in this field, and also benefits from an important legacy in terms of sports venues, which means no new ones will need to be built to host the European Games. Nor will there be the need to build an Athletes’ Village, as the centrally located and well-connected university residence hall will suit the purpose perfectly.

Indeed, very much inline with the spirit of agenda 2020, the EOC and the Belarusian organisers have worked hard to match the sports programme to existing facilities, producing a sustainable sized event, as explained by CoCom Chair Spyros Capralos in his report to the recent 2017 EOC Seminar in Skopje (MKD).

The aim, he said, is to blueprint a sustainable product based on Agenda 2020 that can launch the Olympic Movement of Europe to new heights.