Following the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation's decision to participate in the A. G. Leventis Foundation Scholarship Programme, the Olympic Preparation Scholarship Awards Ceremony took place on April 25th.
 

More information can be found in the Press Release below:                               

A. G. Leventis Foundation joins efforts with The Hellenic Initiative and the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation to support athletes from Greece and Cyprus in their preparation training for the 2020 Olympics.

This year’s Olympic Preparation Scholarship Awards Ceremony of the A. G. Leventis Foundation, which was held with great success on April 25 with the participation of The Hellenic Initiative and the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation, was of great significance.

In their shared desire to support excellence, the Olympic spirit and the hopes of young athletes in particular, the three organizations joined forces for the first time this year, with the aim to support even more athletes from Greece and Cyprus as they begin their arduous four-year preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Through the A. G. Leventis Foundation Scholarship Programme, currently celebrating 18 years of unwavering support to Greek sports, a total of 41 athletes were awarded for their outstanding performance in 2016. The protagonists of the event, the athletes themselves, impressed the guests with their remarkable achievements and their daily struggle, always giving their best in their training and persisting in their goals, despite the difficulties.

Spyros Kaparalos, Chairman of the Hellenic Olympic Committee, welcomed the event, laying emphasis on the athletes’ devotion and the importance of private initiative in supporting Olympic preparation. In the discussion that followed under the topic “Eyes on Tokyo: Preparation for the 2020 Olympic Games”, Dimitrios Afendoulis, Secretary of the Executive Board of the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation, Harry G. David, Chairman of the A. G. Leventis Foundation Olympic Preparation Scholarship Awards Committee, Jeremy Downward, member of the Board of The Hellenic Initiative, as well as the Olympic gold medalists Anna Korakaki and Eleftherios Petrounias exchanged views about the Olympic preparation and the demanding path to the Olympic dream. Olympic bronze medalists in sailing Panagiotis Mantis and Pavlos Kagialis also participated in the conversation through Skype from Hyères, France, where they compete in the World Cup, as did the Olympic gold medalist in pole vault, Katerina Stefanidi, from the USA. The conversation was coordinated by the reporter and member of the A. G. Leventis Foundation Olympic Preparation Scholarship Awards Committee, Tasos Telloglou.

The ceremony was concluded with the presentation of the awards to the athletes, who were vigorously applauded by the guests, among which several leading figures from sports, business and academia, such as the Chairman of the Hellenic Olympic Academy, Lambis Nikolaou and the former Minister Fani Palli-Petralia, and several institutions such as MDA Hellas, the Network for Children’s Rights and the Hatzikiriakio Foundation.

A few words on the Olympic Preparation Scholarship Awards Programme

The athletic scholarships programme of the A. G. Leventis Foundation has been a solid institution in this field since 1999. It has always stood behind those training hard, often under adverse conditions, to be able to compete on an equal basis with the best of the best, in this celebration of athletic excellence, the Olympic Games. Since the first years after the programme was launched, over 400 annual scholarships focused on this much-promising generation of young champions, as a response to the broader lack of resources for top-level competitive sports, thus enabling them to pursue their efforts and stand out on a competitive international stage.