The 10th European Youth Olympic Winter Festival (EYOWF) 2011 in the Liberec Region has attracted great attention among foreign delegations. After the first round of applications in mid-October, there are 1,630 registered participants.
Selected attractive competitions of the EYOWF 2011 programme will also appear on television screens. The Eurosport 2 channel will provide viewers with ten hours of live coverage. The preliminary coverage should include the Ice Hockey match of the Czech Republic against Finland and the tournament finals, individual and team Ski Jumping competitions and the Cross Country sprint. The signal will be produced by Czech Television. A 20-minute report with daily highlights is also under negotiation. A documentary film covering the entire proceedings of EYOWF 2011 is also planned.
Eight pairs of students from the Liberec Region will have the opportunity to meet successful Czech athletes face to face and spend part of a day with them. As part of the "On the Trail of the Patrons" competition, they were asked to make a profile documentary about the Czech national athletes who support the EYOWF in Liberec.
After a year and a half, the accompanying social programme "vyCOOL se!", which is an integral part of the preparations for EYOWF 2011, is approaching its end. Up until the Festival's beginning, participants may continue to look forward to the event on ice (Cool Day), the knowledge quiz (Hey you, do you know the answer?!) and the day of active sport (Clever Fun Day). The programme will culminate in an art competition "Europe in the Heart of Europe", in which students design cubes with the edge measuring one meter and depicting all 49 participating countries. The "vyCOOL se!" programme has been joined by more than four thousand participants.
The EYOWF Team, which at present consists of more than 500 volunteers chosen to participate in the organisation of the 2011 Festival, can boast of international cooperation. Eight of its members come from foreign countries - two from Slovakia and one each from Luxembourg, Finland, Italy, Spain and Serbia. These volunteers will mostly join the NOC Services Department, but also the Sport and Medical departments. Their great advantage is their language competency and definitely their ability to speak fluent Czech.
The Organisers of the EYOWF 2011 have recently addressed each member country of the EOC in order to submit preliminary entries by numbers. The Festival in the Liberec Region next year expects to host some 1,500 participants from 49 countries. Despite the first round deadline in the middle of October, some countries have already sent their entries. The fastest and the winner :-) to respond was the NOC of Romania, who registered 46 athletes, followed by the Czech Republic (102) and Switzerland (101).