Damjan Pintar – Olympic Solidarity consultant and SporTour expert – visited Beirut, Lebanon to gather information necessary to offer support in preparing a functional framework leading to developing sports in Lebanon and identify opportunities that would set the ground for future cooperation between Lebanese and Slovenian Olympic Committees and sports federations.
During his week-long stay in April 2016, Damjan Pintar worked closely with members of the Lebanese Olympic Committee and local sports federations representatives, including Mazen Ramadan (LOC member, chairman of Olympic Solidarity, President of the Kayak Federation) to learn about the current situation of sport in Lebanon. In the course of their working sessions, the participants performed a SWOT analysis to summarize their findings and set goals for the future.
On a more practical side, Mazen Ramadan and his colleagues organized visits to several sport venues and events in Lebanon, including a first division national basketball league match and inspections at private multipurpose sports facilities.
In addition to group meetings, individual meetings were held to discuss cooperation possibilities at the level of Lebanese and Slovenian national federations. As a result, initials steps were made to kick of cooperation between the cycling, table tennis, judo and archery federations.
During the IOC Trophy Award ceremony presented to the University of Antonin, Damjan Pintar discussed exchange programs opportunities between the Lebanese and Slovenian sports faculties under the umbrella of the two National Olympic committees.
In the next step of this knowledge exchange program NOC Lebanon representatives will visit Slovenia.