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News Release
July 19, 2003
Contact: Kort Utley, (801) 538-1053

Team Utah Honored in Dramatic Opening Ceremony
Competition begins tomorrow

MOSCOW, Russia – In a dramatic celebration of sport and humanity, the City of Moscow opened the Moscow-Utah Summer Games with a magical flare of music, lights, dancing and special effects. Utah athletes, who were dressed in their dark blue Team Utah sweat suits, paraded underneath a prominently displayed Utah flag, handed out U.S. and Utah flags to the crowd and later sang the U.S. national anthem. The entire celebration was reminiscent in style and emotion, but not in scale, to an Olympic opening ceremony.

“These games demonstrate the power of sport to unite people,” said Leavitt to a crowd of approximately 12,000 people, including 500 athletes from Utah and Moscow. “Our hope is that these same athletes will meet again not only on the field of sport, but in the fields of enterprise and culture.”

Mayor Yuri Luzhkov welcomed Team Utah and reminded the competitors of the purpose of these games. “These games are not a matter of who wins,” said Luzhkov. “The most important thing is that we bring people together.”

The ceremony included a laser light show, water fountains, dancing and acrobatic entertainment. The crowd participated in the festivity boisterously, repeatedly shouting “Mosc-ow” in honor of their team and cheering for the American team as well. They saved their loudest cheers for their mayor as he spoke of his vision for sport in the community, even as he, now in his sixties, recovered from a back injury from playing soccer earlier in the week. The entire production was aired on Moscow television later in the evening.

For many in Team Utah, the Opening Ceremony was the first opportunity to see the Russian teams. The Utah delegation of athletes, coaches, parents, sponsors and dignitaries was all a buzz about how competitive the Utah team could be given the nearly nine million people in Moscow compared to Utah’s just over two million people. Some of the talk was fueled by the height of several of the members of Team Moscow. The speculation will end tomorrow as athletic competition in basketball, volleyball, swimming and baseball begins. Competition for five other sports begins on the following day. The competition ends July 25.

Moscow has made it a priority to host youth sporting events. The city hosted the World Youth Games in 1998 and the International Youth Games of the Commonwealth of Independent States in 2002. The city is also a bid city for the 2012 Olympic Summer Games and a vice president from the International Olympic Committee was present at tonight’s ceremony. Team Moscow will come to Utah to participate in the Moscow-Utah Winter Games in February 2004.