Three years on from their first meeting, the European Federations for the sports on the summer EYOF programme met up with a delegation from the EOC in Rome on the 30th of June, to assess the results of cooperation concerning the EOC Youth Games. It was indeed in Rome, the Associations HQ, that bilateral agreements with the nine EFs involved in the summer EYOF programme were signed in 2007. The sports involved are: athletics, basketball, cycling, gymnastics, handball, judo, swimming, tennis and volleyball. This months meeting allowed EOC President Patrick Hickey (IRL), Vice President Sasha Kozlovsly, Secretary General Raffaele Pagnozzi (ITA), and EYOF Commission Chair Guido De Bondt (BEL), accompanied by many of his Commissions members, to assess how the summer EYOF is going, together with their counterparts from the EFs: Athletics President and Director General Hansjörg Wirz andChristian Milz, Basketball President and Secretary General Olafur Rafnsson and Nar Zanolin, Cycling President and Secretary General Wojciech Walkiewicz and Roland Hofer, Gymnastics First Vice President Malin Eggertz Forsmark, Handball President and Secretary General Tor Lian and Michael Wiederer, Judo Vice President and Secretary General Franco Capelletti and Envic Galea, Swimming President and Director Nory Kruchten and Laszlo Szakadati, Volleyball President and Administrative Director André Meyer, and Olivier Mottier, and Tennis Board Member and Chair of the Junior Committee Ayda Uluc.

Whilst in Rome the EOC President also briefly greeted the members of the European Games feasibility study group, who were also meeting in Rome. The idea of a European Games, which has long been around, was recently picked up again by Croatian NOC President Zlatko Matesa, who persuaded the new EOC Executive Committee to investigate it further.

 Before Italy, Patrick J. Hickey had being travelling to Japan where he has become an international ambassador of the “Jigaro Kano” Foundation, the founder of judo born 150 years ago, and made the main speech at a seminar held at Tsukuba University in Tokyo commemorating his anniversary.