Mattarella declares the 145th session of the IOC open. "Sport is meeting in peace in a world of barriers"
For the Head of State, 'it bears witness to fraternity in the fairness of competition with others'
"I declare open the 145th session of the International Olympic Committee": this is how the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella concluded his speech at La Scala in which he called "with determination" for an Olympic truce. Everyone stood up for the Head of State and IOC President Kirsty Coventry's entrance into the hall. Massimiliano Rosolino, one of the presenters of the ceremony, then asked the audience to stand for the performance of the Olympic anthem and then the Mameli anthem.
After the president's speech, the La Scala orchestra returned to the stage with conductor Riccardo Chailly and baritone Luca Salsi for a concert with a programme entirely dedicated to music by Rossini and Verdi
Sports is meeting in peace in a world of barriers
"Sport is an encounter in peace: it bears witness to fraternity in the fairness of competition with others. It is the opposite of a world where barriers and incommunicability prevail". This was said by the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, during the official opening of the 145th session of the IOC at La Scala theatre in Milan. "It is opposed to the violence that, by whoever practises it, generates more violence, tramples on human dignity, oppresses peoples and sets their quality of life back," he added. The Olympics are 'a great global event that sends a message to our difficult times. Wars, lacerations to the serenity of international life, imbalances, suffering bring darkness and wound the consciences of peoples,' concluded Mattarella. Sport welcomes, produces joy, passion, hope. It is respect for the other. It is a challenge to one's own limits: it is freedom to progress'.
Visiting Niguarda from Crans-Montana
In the morning, Mattarella visited the Niguarda Hospital in Milan, where the young people injured in the New Year's Eve tragedy in Crans-Montana are hospitalised, talking with their families and also with the hospital doctors. The President of the Republic thanked the medical staff 'for what you usually do and for what you have done and are doing on this occasion', addressing words of hope to the patients' parents, before a brief tour of the ward ('they must make it, we must give them back a full life'). In the afternoon, however, the Head of State met for about half an hour in the Prefecture in Milan with the parents of Chiara Costanzo, one of the victims of the fire,
