Anton Siekel inspected the sports venues in the city of Olympic winners: Liptovský Mikuláš an example for the rest of Slovakia
Despite the harsh winter, which did not bypass Liptovský Mikuláš, the president of the Slovak Olympic and Sports Committee (SOŠV) Anton Siekel inspected sports in a city that proudly appropriates the “city of Olympic winners”.
Mayor Ján Blcháč took him through the renovated football and hockey stands, but also the construction site, where the center of modern sports should grow, which was subsequently discussed by both of them. if their talks are the basis of a memorandum of cooperation in building sports infrastructure.
What is the essence of the memorandum of cooperation between SOŠV and the city of Liptovský Mikuláš?
– This activity follows on from memoranda of cooperation with higher entities. I am glad that Liptovský Mikuláš is the first city with which we have something about such cooperation. It is symbolic, as it is a city of Olympic winners, and we want other cities to join this initiative. The memorandum of cooperation between the Secondary School and the City of Liptovský Mikuláš will continue on how we can help the Secondary School in building sports infrastructure, full-fledged incentive programs for children. There is an Olympic club in the city, which is very active and this program works here, so we have something to follow. Our goal is, and I am glad, that after a long period of pandemic measures, I also saw here that there were as many children as possible on the sports grounds.
The mayor introduced you to the pumptrack track project. Have you also discussed the possibility of financing the construction of this sports ground?
– We discussed it, we talked about the expectations of this investment. I personally advocate that these modern sports, which seek to attract people to sports such as BMX or other modern sports that have already entered the Olympic program, have support, and I believe that we will succeed in this project.
There are definitely more of those projects in Slovakia. Do you have another chance to get where they can get and what is the biggest project waiting for you in the near future?
– I assume that this question is directed to the Sport Promotion Fund. We have three representatives on the board. I know that the call is not closed yet, but as far as I have information from our representatives, according to the prescribed applications, the most registered belong to the municipalities, municipal clubs. I believe that they managed to find the budget of the Fund for the Support of Sports, which is 20 million euros, to cover the whole of Slovakia.
… and the biggest project?
– There are more of these projects, but I really needed to be able, after long negotiations, to achieve a distribution of money for national infrastructure, which is neglected and not for cities and municipalities. Here is the duty of the state to help. Our task is to help those projects that will help this country the most. There are many of them, it will not be possible to satisfy everyone in the first stage, but we will try to select them as well as quickly and as efficiently as possible.