Sports, celebrity ambassadors and welcoming heroes. This is what the Olympic Festival at Lake Most shall be like

The Czech Republic is hosting the Olympic Festival for the sixth time. Visitors will be able to try over fifty different sports at Lake Most in northern Bohemia during the Olympic Games in Paris and welcome the Czech national team back in the largest fanzone. The Czech Olympic Committee first came up with the idea of bringing the Olympic Games closer to fans at home in 2014 during the Winter Games in Sochi, and since then the festival, the concept of which has been taken over by the International Olympic Committee, has been held during each edition of the Games – tens of thousands of fans and especially children did sports there even when Covid restrictions were in place. So what is in store for 2024?

Record number of sports

It is already certain that fans will be able to try over 50 sports at the Olympic Festival at Lake Most. "This is the highest number of sports presented in the history of the Olympic Festivals. I believe that especially children will discover their favourite disciplines there," said Libor Varhaník, Vice-President of the Czech Olympic Committee. The main idea of the upcoming festival is to bring children in the Ústí nad Labem region to sport. This region is statistically one of the worst in the country in terms of physical fitness.

The festival is supported by famous ambassadors

The faces of the Olympic Festival Paris 2024 at Lake Most are three-time Olympic medallists – javelin thrower Barbora Špotáková and rower Ondřej Synek. "I am really looking forward to the festival. I will be able to try fifty sports with my children and experience the Olympic atmosphere in a different way there – we will be able to welcome our Olympians and, hopefully, fresh medallists as well. You can even sleep in a tent right in the Olympic festival camp. It will be a different experience, but still very Olympic," said Barbora Špotáková.

She is happy to be an ambassador together with Ondřej Synek – both of them won medals in Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016. "We lived through our successes, as well as what comes after them, award ceremonies and other events together – we kept bumping into each other here and there. Ondra is one of my favourite Olympians. He's a lot of fun and a really cool guy."

Swimming in the cleanest lake

The Olympic Festival returns to the lake after eight years. In 2016, the Rio-Lipno sports Park in southern Bohemia was a great success. This time, the festival will take place at the second cleanest lake in the Czech Republic, which was named in memory of the demolished historic town that had to give way to coal mining in the second half of the 20th century and stood at the site of today's newly created artificial lake. "Our whole region is mainly associated with coal mining. But we want to show people that there are really beautiful places here, such as Lake Most. We would like to be the dark horse of all the Olympic Festivals that have been held so far," says Marek Hrvol, the mayor of Most.

Jiří Kejval, President of the Czech Olympic Committee, adds: "We want to attract as many young people as possible to sport and enable them to meet their idols. For the first time in a long time, we have the opportunity to watch the performances of our athletes in the same time zone, so we believe that visitors will also enjoy cheering for them all together. But we decided that the Olympic Festival should have an even deeper meaning – we want to show people a new place that they don't know so much about and that is also interesting in terms of sustainability, environmental protection, land reclamation and beauty."

Olympic festival camping and camps

For the first time, visitors will have the opportunity to stay and sleep directly on the Olympic Festival grounds in the camp in comfortable tents for two, five or seven people. There will also be a caravan zone.

At the Camp of the Olympic Festival, children will be able to experience their little Olympics every day. They will try both Olympic and non-Olympic sports, meet famous athletes, experience a unique atmosphere and get an analysis of their sporting abilities. The relaxation part of the programme will be represented by a tailor-made interactive educational zone dedicated to Olympism.