Baku. Farid Mirzayev – APA. “As President of the European Olympic Committees (EOC), I will always welcome events which support the development of European sport and help European athletes reach their full potential. But this event is a completely different initiative to the European Games, with fewer sports, fewer athletes and in a different year,” said EOC President Patrick Hickey, commenting on the newly-launched European Sports Championship, to be co-hosted by Glasgow and Berlin in 2018, APA reported citing insidethegames.biz.
Patrick Hickey said that thanks to the Olympic Games qualification opportunities and the unique multi-sport Games experience on offer at the European Games, we will continue to attract the continent's top athletes, and with top athletes will come the commercial and broadcast partners to reach our audiences in Europe and beyond.
“The EOC was originally aiming for 12 sports at the European Games; at Baku 2015, we are already up to 20 with 12 of the 16 Olympic sports offering Olympic qualification. And Baku 2015 will be broadcast to 55 countries globally,” Hickey told insidethegames.
The EOC President said that they had strong expressions of interest in hosting the 2019 edition from six cities, and we are close to finalizing the deal with the next hosts.
"For me, that already makes the European Games an established brand and an event at the pinnacle of European sport, and it is only going to get better from here,” Hickley underlined.
It was announced a few days ago that Scotland and Germany are to co-host the first European Sports Championships in 2018. Around 2,900 athletes will come to Glasgow to take part in cycling, rowing, swimming and triathlon events, while Berlin will stage athletics.
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