PRESIDENT MEETS CYPRUS OLYMPIC STARS

Famagusta Gazette
12.AUG.08
Cyprus

President Christofias has visited the Olympic Village where he met
Cypriot athletes, competing in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

"We may be small but we have a big heart," he said of Cyprus and the
17-member Olympic team which represents the country at the Olympics.

He said Cyprus has won the respect of powerful nations around the
world and especially the host country China. "We are proud of this,"
he added.

The president spent three hours with the Cypriot athletes, in the
presence of the Chairman of the Cyprus Olympic Committee Kikis
Lazarides and the Chief of the Cypriot Mission Alecos Spanos.

"It’s a great honor to represent our country and it’s a great honor to
participate in this great sports fiesta," Christofias said, adding that
the presence of the Cyprus flag at the Olympic Games consolidates the
existence of the Cypriot state, which still suffers from the Turkish
invasion and the continuing occupation.

"Our wish and expectation, through the battles we wage on the political
front, is to end Turkey’s occupation and halt illegal immigration
into the northern Turkish occupied areas of the country.

"We also aim to reunite Cyprus so that it can serve the interests
of all its citizens, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites,
Armenians and Latins in conditions of peace, happiness and prosperity,"
he stressed.

Addressing the Cypriot sailors competing in Qingdao Olympic Centre,
the President said: "we want these athletes to be able one day to
sail in the waters of Kerynia," (on the north coast of Cyprus and
still under Turkish occupation).

Christofias wished everyone success.

President Christofias visited also the headquarters of the Greek
Olympic team and offered a replica of the Kyrenia ship (ancient ship
found in Kyrenia) as a symbolic gift to the leader of the mission
Isidoros Kouvelos.

He met the mayor of the Olympic Village, toured the site, conversed
with athletes and witnessed how around 20,000 people spend their day
at the Olympic Village.

President Christofias announced that he and the Minister of Education
and Culture Andreas Demetriou would visit a Chinese school, which
was twinned with a Cypriot village as part of the Heart-to-Heart
Partnership programme of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Educational
Programme.