Events Calendar – British School at Athens

Course keynote lecture – History and Philosophy of the Olympic Games

Professor George Mavrotas (Secretary General of Sport, Hellenic Ministry of Education, Religious Affairs and Sport), “Modern challenges for sport integrity”

From ancient years, in the first Olympic Games, sport was related to ethics and values. After the revival of sport culture and the first modern Olympic Games at the end of 19th century, sport was strongly linked to its ancient roots, where ethics, values, integrity, sportsmanship prevail.
Nowadays, with the global spread of sports, the intense commercialization with the inevitable side effects, significant shadows have appeared, targeting especially the ethics, the values, the true character of sport what we define as sport integrity. According to the Council of Europe -the most influential intergovernmental organization regarding sport- when we are talking about sport integrity we mean the integrity of people, the integrity of sport competitions and the integrity of sport organizations.
In 2018 the UN and UNESCO recognized five policy areas that need our attention in order to protect sport integrity: (a) violence in sport events (b) interpersonal violence in sport environments (c) doping (d) manipulation of sport competitions (e) corruption in sport organizations.
In my lecture I will present the national and international framework and modern trends in the fight against these threats to sport integrity presenting some concrete developments.

George Mavrotas (b.1967) was an international water polo player (1984-2000) with 511 caps with the Greek national team (captain in 1995-2000) and participation in 5 Olympic Games (1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000). Concurrently with his athletic career, he received his degree in the School of Chemical Engineering in the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He received his PhD diploma in 2000 with expertise in Operational Research and today he is an Associate Professor in NTUA. He is in the Stanford list of top 2% scientists for 2024 based on the impact of their scientific publications. In 2015-2019 he was member of the Hellenic Parliament and from 2016 to 2019 member of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe. In July 2019, he was designated as Secretary General of Sport and renewed his term in July 2023. In June 2021 he was elected as Chairman of the Follow Up Committee of the “Macolin Convention” of the Council of Europe against manipulation of sport competitions and he was re-elected in the same position for a second term in May 2023.

In-person only

To attend in person in Athens, please register here

image: National Platform for Sport Integrity icon