New York Times: The Spirit of the Olympics Has Returned to Sarajevo

(Patria) - The spirit of the Olympics has returned to Sarajevo after "ethnic elites put aside their differences to host the country's biggest sporting event since the 1984 Winter Olympic Games," writes Reuters in an article carried by the New York Times on Friday.

The opening of the EYOF in Sarajevo and its closing a week later in East Sarajevo was described as a "demonstration of cooperation among former enemies, between whom the front line ran during the war."

"Achieving this cooperation was not easy," writes the New York Times, explaining that the cities are separated by an entity border that was "carved out along ethnic lines during the 1992-1995 war in which 100,000 people died."

"Two young mayors were eager to promote their cities as winter sports and tourism destinations and navigated the 'bear traps' of daily politics to realize the youth winter festival," the newspaper writes.

"Was it easy? No. Did we have obstructions? Yes, daily, but the final result is that the project will happen and that we managed to bring together all levels of government, two cities, and citizens around it," Sarajevo Mayor, Abdulah Skaka, told Reuters.

"We no longer live in the trenches of the 1990s, we must overcome that (...) Just leave politics aside, and we will cooperate well on all projects of common interest in sports and tourism," said the Mayor of East Sarajevo, Nenad Vuković.

The EYOF will be officially opened, according to the newspaper, by "Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik," the Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

"The Olympics hold a special place in the hearts of many Sarajevans who still remember the glory of the 1984 Winter Olympic Games, organized for the first time in a communist country - then Yugoslavia," the newspaper writes.