Sports

Sarajevo recalls better times on anniversary

Most of its Olympic Games facilities are in ruins

updated 7:45 p.m. ET Feb. 11, 2004

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - With tears rolling down her cheeks, Katarina Witt watched a video of her 1984 Olympic performance as part of a tribute marking the 20th anniversary of the Sarajevo Games.

Witt and Oleg Vasiliev — who won their first gold medals in Sarajevo — highlighted the opening of a three-day festival in a city where most of its Olympic facilities are in ruins.

The two figure skaters joined competitors from last weekend’s European championships in Hungary on Monday night, the first time since the 1984 Winter Games and the Bosnian war that skaters performed in the city.

The Zetra hall, venue for the Olympic figure skating, speedskating and ice hockey, was burned down during the war in 1992, and war victims were buried in a graveyard next to it.

The hall was reconstructed and had held only concerts or political rallies until Monday night’s main anniversary celebration.

Dressed in a dark suit, a tearful Witt stood on the ice and watched as a large screen showed her 1984 gold-winning routine for East Germany. She said she was glad to be back again and “celebrate the future of Sarajevo.”

A red-eyed Vasiliev, a 1984 pairs champ for the Soviet Union, struggled to speak, breaking into tears. The audience stood and filled the silence with applause, allowing him to pull himself together.

“I am more nervous now than 20 years ago,” he finally said. “I will never forget you.”

Sounds of people in the audience sobbing could be heard through the evening.

The three-day celebrations are an attempt by Sarajevo to revive the good times the city enjoyed before the war, and promote the mountain-ringed city as a potential host for future international sports events.

“Sarajevo wants to, Sarajevo hopes to be the host of the Olympic Games again,” Bosnian President Dragan Covic said Monday.

IOC president Jacques Rogge recalled visiting Sarajevo in 1994, when it was under siege and bombardment by Serb gunners.

Back then, “this was a Sarajevo of horror,” he said Tuesday. Now, he added, it is “a Sarajevo of hope.”

The 1992-95 Bosnian war was the most brutal conflict on European soil since World War II. It took 260,000 lives and turned more than half the population into refugees.

Although the country still hasn’t recovered, many officials hope Sarajevo will one day again host international sports. While the Olympics is a long shot, officials hope to at least host figure skating in the rebuilt hall.

The bobsled track on Mount Trebevic, overlooking Sarajevo, is a concrete skeleton. Little remains of the ski-jump facilities on Mount Igman, a site of fierce fighting during the war.

The men’s downhill course on Bjelasnica has become the city’s main ski resort — used by those brave enough to ski in an area still infested with mines.

Mount Jahorina is the only spot spared from severe war destruction. However, it still is inhabited by refugees.