Rome, 8^th August – the Utrecht 2013 has come to a close, and without any sign of performance enhancing drugs, as the XII summer EYOF has once again confirmed that our young European athletes have resolutely said NO to doping, the EOC EYOF Commission having just announced that all tests conducted for the nine sports on the programme were negative, showing how these youngsters all competed with a true sense of fair-play.

These results point to how the anti-doping education programmes aimed at these young athletes have been effective right from the start of their sports careers, so setting a solid base for a professional sports career without doping.

Fine encouragement for the EYOF Commission, that certainly was not idle in recent months. Led by Chair Guido De Bondt, assisted by EYOF Manager Katerina Nycova, the Commission organised the debriefing for the Brasov EYOF, did a workshop at the San Marino Seminar and, above all, followed preparations for and the staging of the Utrecht EYOF, without forgetting future EYOFs, and in particular the 2015 winter EYOF in Vorarlberg/Liechtenstein, the first to be jointly organised by two NOCs, Austria and Liechtenstein, as well as visiting the organisers of the Tbilisi 2015 EYOF, busy preparing the next summer EYOF, and stepping up contacts with the organisers of the 2017 EYOFs in Sarajevo & East Sarajevo (BIH) and Györ (HUN). And the great deal of work the Commission invested in acquiring candidates for the 2019 EYOFs has also born fruit.

Lastly, always concerning communication, the Commission cooperated in the launch of the new EOC YouTube channel that now allows internet surfers to see the highlights of all EOC Sports Events.

And so it has been a very busy second quarter for the EYOF Commission, who will now take a brief summer break before getting back to business.