?he State will upgrade sports in Cyprus to the level they should be, Cyprus President, Nikos Christodoulides, said on Saturday evening, addressing Cypriot Olympic athletes at a reception at the residence of the Ambassador of Cyprus in Paris.
He noted that seeing the athletes of countries such as Ukraine, China, the USA, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, and thinking about the population of these countries and the population of Cyprus, ‘it is proven that the presence of Cypriot athletes at the Olympic Games is a huge success’. ‘We are proud of you’, he told them.
President Christodoulides said that they have to do much more as a State ‘if we want to invest in sport – and we want to do it – especially in terms of infrastructure, seeing in general the opportunities in infrastructure that athletes have in other countries’.
‘It is a shame that our athletes are forced to go abroad to train because the infrastructure does not exist in Cyprus’, he added, promising that the state would upgrade sports to the level
they needed to be upgraded.
He also said that athletes were ‘the best’ role models for youth.
President Christodoulides congratulated the athletes for being there to compete, noting ‘we are proud of you’. We shouldn’t only remember you during the Olympics, he said, adding that the state ought to remember them every day.
Speaking on behalf of athletes, sprinter Milan Trajkovic said they would do their best for Cyprus.
Source: Cyprus News Agency