A lectio magistralis by Gianni Letta presented the first Olympic Management Course for General Secretaries created by CONI’s Advanced School of Olympic Specialisation (Alta Scuola di Specializzazione Olimpica). In the presence of CONI President Giovanni Malagò and General Secretary Carlo Mornati, and with the Minister of University and Research, Senator Anna Maria Bernini, in video connection, the curtain was raised on CONI's training activities planned for 2024 and entrusted to Professor Angelo Maria Petroni, Scientific Director of the Advanced School of Olympic Specialisation.

In the presence of CONI Vice Presidents Silvia Salis and Claudia Giordani, the Honorary Member of the IOC Franco Carraro, the President of the Association of Summer Olympic Sports Federations Francesco, Ricci Bitti, the President of the Italian Paralympic Committee, Luca Pancalli, the President of the Sports Guarantee Board, Gabriela Palmieri Sandulli, the President of the National School of Administration, Paola Severino, and former Bocconi University Rector Gianmario Verona, the presentation, held at the Giulio Onesti Olympic Preparation Centre in Rome, began with institutional greetings from Malagò and a message from IOC President Thomas Bach.

“Thanks to everyone, this course is the result of the work by Secretary General Carlo Mornati, the team and the offices. We are very proud of it, all I contributed were my endorsement and some project ideas,” said Giovanni Malagò. “This course takes advantage of our opportunity – which is unique and exclusive – to use the Olympic brand. Only in Italy do we have this opportunity.”

“There could be no better place than the Giulio Onesti Olympic Preparation Centre, this great asset of CONI,” continued the President of the Italian National Olympic Committee. “We needed a symbol, a person with a great curriculum like Professor Petroni and we needed a Committee of Trustees – people who could give maximum credibility to the Course. Once again, I would like to pay tribute to the sensitivity, affection and ideas contributed by Gianni Letta. Next, we have a Dream Team composed of three women: Gabriella Sandulli Palmieri, Paola Severino and Claudia Giordani. Plus Professor Gianmario Verona. I have spoken to many athletes, they have written to me expressing great enthusiasm, they can't wait to sign up.”

“The idea that sport is universal and serves a higher purpose for all human beings was central to Pierre de Coubertin's thinking,” emphasised Thomas Bach in his message. “For him, the Olympic Games represented much more than just a sporting event, he saw them as a way to promote greater understanding among all the nations and peoples of the world. He wanted to make the world a better place through sport and its values. This remains the fundamental mission of the IOC,” he said.

“And this is why,” continued the IOC President, “the launch of the Olympic Management course at the Giulio Onesti Advanded School of Olympic Specialisation represents a milestone for the Olympic community in Italy, led by CONI. This programme illustrates CONI's commitment to spreading Olympic values throughout Italian society in a truly excellent way. My thanks and gratitude go out to all at CONI, under the great leadership of its President Giovanni Malagò. The Olympic Management Course will also be an important contribution of CONI to ensure the great success of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games for Italy and the entire Olympic Movement,” Bach concluded.

Great appreciation for the course also came from the Minister of University and Research, Senator Anna Maria Bernini. “President Malagò is a great leader and this is a great initiative. Olympic Management is not only the present, but above all the future of sport. Because you don't win through ability and enthusiasm alone,” Senator Bernini remarked in connection, “but with research, science, technology and higher education too – with everything that CONI is good at. I know well all the members of the Committee of Trustees, the Dream Team as President Malagò called it: they will bring great professionalism to the role.”

“We are not in any way competing, on the contrary we feel supported by initiatives like this and we pledge to give all possible support,” assured Senator Bernini. “With President Giovanni Malagò and Minister Andrea Abodi we want to make the relationship between universities and sport even closer. Anyone who attends a course of study and shows sporting talent must be supported. I am talking about dual careers: it is essential to coordinate and be coordinated, athletes must be supported and helped, because no one ever wins on their own, but with the whole team. I am sure that this School will help to create a blend of knowledge and skills.”

The Minister of Education and Merit, Giuseppe Valditara, also sent a message: “I express my appreciation for the great work and commitment in setting up the Advanced School of Olympic Specialisation. Promoting the development of professional roles, particularly managerial ones, capable of interpreting the ecosystem of Sport in our country while taking care of relations with corporate entities is an objective that is as necessary as it is far-sighted.”

Then it was Secretary Carlo Mornati’s turn to set out the Olympic Training project. “The Advanced School of Olympic Specialisation is part of the continuous training pathway, which has always been a hallmark of CONI. Our goal, in line with our Statute, is the standardisation of training. We want to follow the path of Italy’s Graduate School of Public Administration: we are not the antithesis of or in competition with the academic world – we are a professional school, we will work within our prerogatives.”

“Today we are starting with a permanent training course for General Secretaries,” Mornati further explained, “Ours is a very special world, 80% of which is made up of volunteers, people with commitments in the outside world. But even those who enter our world on a working level are often athletes or coaches. Everyone now an important tool available in the school. Innovation in tradition: we are strongly rooted in our history, we are not inventing anything new, we are just trying to embed it,” concluded Mornati, as he showed a video explaining the goals of the school.

Professor Petroni, meanwhile, explained how the Giulio Onesti Olympic Management Course will be delivered. In addition to an edition reserved for General Secretaries, it will be aimed at eight female and eight male graduates and, thanks to four additional places, two male and two female athletes who have taken part in at least one edition of the Summer or Winter Olympic Games, with the aim of creating cutting-edge, highly qualified professionals who will contribute to the success of sport and the Olympic team.

“I want to thank CONI, represented by President Malagò, for the trust placed in me. The decision to establish this school is in line with tradition,” explained Professor Angelo Maria Petroni. “This school will create the new generation of Olympic managers, women and men who will have the skills required by an increasingly complex world. Passion is no longer enough if we want to place our athletes in the best conditions to excel. Together with the training of the new generations, the school has the task of increasing the skills of those who lead Italian sport: having had adequate initial training today is not enough 0150 we must continuously learn new content and new techniques.”

The former Undersecretary to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Gianni Letta, then took the chair, reviewing the more than 100-year history of the Italian National Olympic Committee. “I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that CONI is an autobiography of Italy,” he stressed. “Not of Italy in its political form, but of Italy as a nation. Our founding fathers wanted to reserve the term 'nation' for just three articles of the Charter: there they wanted to express the best part of our identity, which existed and exists regardless of the vicissitudes of political regimes. CONI forms part of this identity.”

Speaking in the Aula Magna of the Olympic Preparation Centre, Letta recalled how “within the walls of this Centre the athletes who undertake the formidable journey to the Olympic Games were forged, as they continue to be forged today.”

“Through sport,” he added, “we all become part of a collective narrative, in which every medal is a hymn to dedication, character, and teamwork. Because victory is always a team game. You always win together. CONI has been reminding us of this for 110 years with its athletes, managers, technicians and coaches.”

Letta then retraced the stages of Italy's Olympic history, recalling Giulio Onesti's role in the dissemination of sports culture in the country, through the creation of the CONI Library, the awarding of the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina and the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, and the establishment on 5 May 1966 of the Central School of Sport.

“The School of Sport” he stated, “has established itself as a centre for advanced training, aimed at all those who, during or at the end of a sporting career, after graduation or during their professional career, wish to invest in a technical and managerial qualification of great value. It has become a point of reference for technical management, the study centres of national sports federations and associated sports disciplines; it has responded to social and sporting challenges and engaged in a path of constant renewal, including through opening up to the university world and internationalisation. Hundreds of people who have mastered their roles have done so at the CONI School: athletes, technicians, national and international managers have contributed to bringing competitive success to our country, making Italian sporting history. Through teamwork with the athletes, the managers trained by CONI have become guides, promoting the tangible interconnection between culture, discipline and moral integrity.”

There was then a shift to current events: “58 years after its creation, the School of Sport is adding a new milestone to its history, inaugurating CONI's Olympic Training Project. A project inspired by the Olympic Charter.” “The Course presented today,” he said, “represents a new chapter in the growth of the Italian sports movement, offering educational programmes of the highest level, combining theoretical skills and practical experience, with the goal of acting as a beacon for the advanced training of sports operators, managers, executives, and athletes. But that’s not all. Because within CONI's new Olympic Training project sits the Advanced School of Olympic Specialisation, of which I have the honour of being the President of the Committee of Trustees.”

Afterwards, Letta explained the aims of the course: “Based on the lessons of the past and updated in the light of the most recent educational developments, the Olympic Management Course aims to convey a profound and current understanding of the Olympic mission, training professionals to become catalysts of change, inspiring young athletes to pursue not only success, but also personal growth and social responsibility.”

“The objective of such a structured course,” he added, “is that future Olympic managers can become torch bearers of a holistic vision, combining sporting excellence with the cultural dimension.” Next came a dedication to the trainees: “May every participant in our courses find inspiration in these words, helping to create a future in which the values of sport guide their every step towards excellence”.