” “”A beautiful party that perfectly topped up the Olympic event, in which, as well as the athletes’ skills, the organisers’ ability and efficiency also deserve being praised”. This is the way mgr. Wilhelm Emil Egger, bishop of Bolzano-Bressanone, commented to SIR the closing ceremony of the Winter Olympics of Turin (10-26 February). But the prelate also looks at the Para-Olympics, due in Turin from 10th to 19th March, and at the 1,300 athletes that will compete against each other in Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, biathlon, ice hockey and curling, and says: “They are a sign of the greatness of man, who, through commitment and willpower, can overcome quite a lot of limitations. Regardless of the medals they will take home, these athletes are already winners”. According to the bishop, “sports free the mind of other worries, makes one able to concentrate and commit oneself; if the body is healthy and fit, the thought too is freer and livelier”. Mgr. Egger, a cross-country skier and a keen mountain trekker, lingers on the "feeling of ennoblement and opening of the spirit that is given by the contact with the beauty of nature and the universe”. But sports, "provided they do not exacerbate the willingness to win at all costs and does not become a crazy attempt to go beyond all limits”, is also a "training ground for the will and for commitment; in other words, it is a school of life” and, through strictness and self-control, it really makes one freer and somehow open to a nobler dimension of life”. ” “
