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News>Virtual online conference: WGI celebrates successful 5th Olympic Symposium
May 12, 2021

Virtual online conference: WGI celebrates successful 5th Olympic Symposium

On Tuesday, May 11th, 2021, the Willibald Gebhardt Institute hosted the 5th Olympic Symposium Willibald Gebhardt under the leadership of Vice President for “Olympic Education”, Michael Krüger. This fifth edition of the Gebhardt Symposium was held as an online conference for the first time – due to the restrictions imposed by the Corona pandemic.

The program, which included international experts on the subject of Olympics, Olympic history and, in particular, the life and work of Willibald Gebhardt – the 100th anniversary of his death on April 30, 2021 – offered all participants stimulating information and interesting impulses. Most of the nine hour program was attended by 20 to 30 participants. Thanks to the participation of students from the University of Münster, the number of participants rose to up to 90 in the afternoon.

In addition to the input from the speakers in the six working groups, there was a lot of discussion after the presentations but also at the end in an engaging virtual panel discussion moderated by Michael Krüger. “After almost nine hours of intensive exchange about Willibald Gebhardt and politics, sports and current affairs as the context of his work, I draw a very positive conclusion,” said WGI President Heinz Aschebrock in his closing remarks. For Aschebrock it is clear: “There are still white spots in the historical coming to terms with Willibald Gebhardt’s work. In this respect, I am pleased that 2022 will offer further opportunities to deal with research results on Gebhardt’s influence. ”

Because not only will the WGI be 30 years old in 2022 – which Aschebrock and his colleagues on the WGI Executive Board would like to use as an occasion for a scientific face-to-face event – an anniversary event “50 Years of the Olympic Games Munich 1972” is also to take place in Munich. It is also planned to publish the conference proceedings of the 5th Olympic Symposium of the WGI in another conference volume. Michael Krüger thanked all international participants and speakers from Switzerland, Denmark and the Czech Republic for their contributions and participation

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