The European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) takes place from 6-19 February 2019, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Country that hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1984.
Sarajevo will welcome 46 National Olympic Committees, with more than 1,600 athletes aged between 14 to 18, competing in alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, figure-skating, ice-hockey, short-track, speed-skating, snowboarding and curling.
Team Ireland arrived on February 7 with Chef de Mission, Derek Bolger, Coach, Alain Untergassmair and Linda O’Reilly, Operations Manager (OFI). Heather Boyle, Athletes’ Commission Support and PR Officer (OFI) will join the Team shortly.
Team Ireland will have two athletes in Alpine Skiing, Elle Murphy and Matt Ryan. They will both take part in the Slalom and Giant Slalom events. The Alpine events will take place at Praca/Jahorina.
Elle will compete in the Giant Slalom on Monday 11 February at 10.00am local time and her Slalom race will be on Thursday 14 at 10.00am local time.
Matt will compete in Giant Slalom on Tuesday 12 February at 10.00am local time and his Slalom race is on Thursday 14 February at 10.00am local time.
The Athletes’ family members will arrive in Sarajevo over the coming days to show their support for Team Ireland.
The Flame of Peace is on its journey after being lit on 31 January with an arrival on 10 February at Olympic Stadium “Asim Ferhatović Hase”, the same venue for the opening ceremony of the 1984 Winter Games.
At the time of the XIV Olympics the stadium was named Kosevo, built in 1947, but the stadium was badly damaged during the Bosnian War from 1992 to 1995 and was reconstructed following the war.
This sports arena was then named after Asim Ferhatovic, a legendary player for FC Sarajevo.
The stadium has a seating capacity of 36,500.
