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Your Excellency Mr. President of Mexico,Your Excellency Mr. Mayor of Mexico City,Dear Colleagues and Friends, Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the IOC, I wish to warmly thank our Mexican friends for their excellent hospitality. //

The Olympic Movement owes a debt of gratitude to Mexico. Their athletes have won 10 gold medals, and 15 silver and 23 bronze medals at the Olympic Games. Mexico staged marvelous Olympic Games in 1968, and the memories of these and the football World Cups in 1970 and 1986 will remain with us for ever. Few countries can boast such a contribution to world sport. //

It is likewise a pleasure for me to greet Mexico’s great sports leaders here. I wish to thank all of you for your great contributions to the Olympic Movement. //

My colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The 114th IOC Session will be a particularly important one. It will enable us to take the important measures needed to ensure the future development of the IOC and the Olympic Movement. //

Studying the various audits on the IOC administration will allow us to become more efficient. Pursuing the reforms initiated in 1999 will make our institution even more transparent, modern and democratic1. Assessing how to reduce the size and cost of the Games is necessary for these to be staged under optimum conditions in the future2.

Examining the Olympic program, which the IOC needs to do at regular intervals, will enable us to maintain interest in the Olympic Games worldwide. //

I am counting on numerous interventions from you, dear colleagues, to enrich these debates3. Sport is a great social movement and cannot remain isolated from the problems of society. Thirty years ago, the Games were hit by the massacre in Munich. Six years ago, a bomb attack marred the Games in Atlanta. The IOC wishes to pay a renewed tribute to those innocent victims. //

The events in Munich, those of 11 September and the reemergence of international terrorism make security the number one priority for any sports organization4. Let us rejoice in the knowledge that, while terrorism seeks to bring peoples, cultures and religions into conflict, and the risk of armed conflict in the world remains acute, sport showed in Salt Lake City, and will do so again in the future, that it is a factor of universality and brotherhood. While we cannot escape the turmoil of society, we can give the world the values that inspire us. //

The serious economic crisis that we are currently experiencing is also affecting sport and its funding. The IOC has been spared this, thanks to the visionary policy of President Juan Antonio Samaranch and his Executive Board colleagues, which enabled long-term contracts to be signed5. //

The IOC is nonetheless very concerned about the difficulties that many sports organizations, International Federations and National Olympic Committees are currently facing in finding the funds they need for their development. The IOC has a duty to help its partners. In the mid to long term, the policy of cost-cutting and reducing the size of the Olympic Games should allow us to free up more revenue for the Olympic family. // 来源:可可英语 //www.utensil-race.com/kouyi/201407/312878.shtml