Every year, in keeping with tradition, the opening ceremony of the International Session for young participants, is held on the sacred Hill of Pnyx.

This is a site of major historic significance, the place where the Athenian Democracy was born 2,500 years ago.

The summit of the hill of Pnyx was given its present shape in the 4th century B.C.

Against the magnificent backdrop of the Acropolis, high above Athens, on the Hill of the Pnyx, the world is welcomed to Greece, to the International Olympic Academy, to Olympism and to a philosophy, which is the legacy of centuries.

It has always seemed especially important for our Olympic Movement not to forget its roots.This ceremony which is enacted each year in identical fashion, at this very site opposite the sacred hill of the Parthenon, here in Athens where every stone, every place, every name evokes our common history, the history of humanity, this ceremony as I was saying, appears to embody exactly this loyalty, this continuity through time, across the centuries.

Juan Antonio SAMARANCH
IOC Honorary President for Life

We have not worked, my friends and I, to give you back the Olympic Games so that you could turn them into a museum or cinema piece, nor to have them taken over by commercial or electoral interests.
By reviving this 25 - century - old institution we wanted to help you become, once more, the followers of the religion of sports as it was conceived by our great ancestors.
In our modern world filled with enormous potential but which is also threatened by terrible dangers, Olympism could become a school of chivalry and moral purity and as well as physical endurance and strength, provided, however, that you constantly elevate your sense of sporting honour and disinterestedness to the level of your muscular impulse.
The future depends on you.
Pierre de COUBERTIN