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16/07/2013
Belfast Council Receives Sporting Award
Belfast City Council has received an international award in recognition of its promotion of sport.
Bocconi University in Milan has awarded its annual 'Sports Business Academy Award' to the Council for its work in bringing Giro d'Italia - an Italy-based cycling competition - to Belfast.
The award was given jointly to Belfast and Naples, where the 2013 race started, and was accepted by the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Máirtin Ó Muilleoir and Luigi De Magistris, Mayor of Naples.
The award citation states: "Sport is actually one of the best means for positioning the image of a city, boosting the tourist flow, drawing financial resources, developing skills and expertise, directing urban renewal and activating social and cultural development processes.
"These two cities are especially bound by the pink thread of the Giro d`Italia, which began in Naples this year and will start in the Northern Irish capital in 2014: a major event marked by its positive effects in terms of legacy, that is the mid- and long-term benefits for all the territories involved.
Lord Mayor Máirtin Ó Muilleoir responded: "The Giro d`Italia will be the biggest-ever sporting event to be hosted by Belfast and will give us a job-spinning and tourism bonanza while showcasing the hospitality of our people and the beauty of our country to prospective visitors.
"And the figures are truly staggering: Giro, one of the world's three great cycle races, was broadcast daily this year in 174 countries and attracted millions of supporters on the streets. More than one billion unique users visited the Giro official website, 1600 journalists reported on the action as 200 of the world's top cyclists battled it out for the famed pink jersey."
He continued: "In many ways cycling is coming home: it was here in Belfast in 1889 that Willie Hume transformed the sport by winning the first cycle race using a pneumatic tyres invented by local man John Dunlop. The 125th anniversary of that race on the Ormeau Road is next year - an occasion surely worth marking at the `Grande Partzena`, the Big Start, in Belfast."
(IT/CD)
Bocconi University in Milan has awarded its annual 'Sports Business Academy Award' to the Council for its work in bringing Giro d'Italia - an Italy-based cycling competition - to Belfast.
The award was given jointly to Belfast and Naples, where the 2013 race started, and was accepted by the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Máirtin Ó Muilleoir and Luigi De Magistris, Mayor of Naples.
The award citation states: "Sport is actually one of the best means for positioning the image of a city, boosting the tourist flow, drawing financial resources, developing skills and expertise, directing urban renewal and activating social and cultural development processes.
"These two cities are especially bound by the pink thread of the Giro d`Italia, which began in Naples this year and will start in the Northern Irish capital in 2014: a major event marked by its positive effects in terms of legacy, that is the mid- and long-term benefits for all the territories involved.
Lord Mayor Máirtin Ó Muilleoir responded: "The Giro d`Italia will be the biggest-ever sporting event to be hosted by Belfast and will give us a job-spinning and tourism bonanza while showcasing the hospitality of our people and the beauty of our country to prospective visitors.
"And the figures are truly staggering: Giro, one of the world's three great cycle races, was broadcast daily this year in 174 countries and attracted millions of supporters on the streets. More than one billion unique users visited the Giro official website, 1600 journalists reported on the action as 200 of the world's top cyclists battled it out for the famed pink jersey."
He continued: "In many ways cycling is coming home: it was here in Belfast in 1889 that Willie Hume transformed the sport by winning the first cycle race using a pneumatic tyres invented by local man John Dunlop. The 125th anniversary of that race on the Ormeau Road is next year - an occasion surely worth marking at the `Grande Partzena`, the Big Start, in Belfast."
(IT/CD)
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