Speech by President of the Government at reception for Spanish team taking part in Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro

Madrid

Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, a very good day to everyone.

I wanted to begin my speech by saying that I was not the organiser of this event, nor did I place the microphone here which means I have my back to you all, but I hope that you appreciate that that was not my intention but rather I imagine that this is the result of a technical issue that is out of my hands.

Dear friends,

Thank you very much for coming here. And my thanks go to you, Alejandro Blanco, President of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), to the sponsors and to the COE management team. Mr Minister, Mr State Secretary, thank you very much for attending and, above all, many thanks to our athletes.

Many of you already have Olympic experience; many are already medallists; for others this will be the first time you have attended the Olympic Games, but all of you are great athletes, all of you are champions and all of you have a long track-record.

I do not want to go on for too long in a speech on a day like today, but I would like to mention a few things to you.

The first thing is that you represent Spain at these Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, our nation, our country, and a very old nation at that. This is the oldest nation in Europe, the first to achieve unity. It is a nation which has its pros and cons, as is true in so many facets of life and over the course of our history, but it is our country and we love it. This is a great nation, one of the most important countries in the world and, moreover, as we were reminded by Alejandro Blanco in his speech, it is a great sporting powerhouse. I am sure that for you, representing your country, representing Spain, is a source of great pride.

Secondly, I wanted to say to you that you must be aware, when you are in Rio, 8,000 kilometres away from Spain, that there are many people behind you, many Spaniards cheering you on, who will see you on television, who will be following what you do through all sorts of media, who will be overjoyed at your successes, which there will undoubtedly be, and who will also be behind you when certain things, let's hope not many, don't go so well. Remember you will always have a great country of 46-million people behind you.

I want you to also know that we all greatly value what you do. We know that it is one thing to watch a match on television, or an athlete, or a swimmer or someone who makes a great effort, whether successful or less successful, but we also know what goes into this beforehand: many hours of training, a great deal of effort and hard work, a great deal of dedication and perseverance, and that this is an example for everyone, not only in sport but in every walk of life.

Finally, I would like to say to you that we want, as you do, to win medals, the more the merrier; we want to see diplomas, the more the merrier, but we have already won something before we even arrive in Rio and that is your sportsmanship, your desire to triumph, your 'never give up' attitude and what you have done over these years of preparation.

Hence, and I will now draw to a close in the same way as I started, by thanking you, Mr President of the COE, for coming here. We are proud of all of you, we want you to do well, your successes are also ours, but if something goes wrong, which is inevitable as in so many other facets of life, you must understand that you need to persevere and never give up and that you have a great nation such as Spain and all the Spaniards behind you.

Thank you very much.