Good morning friends:

Doctor Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee.

Mr. Mario Vázquez Raña, president of the Pan-American Sports Organization.

Public accountant Zeferino Torreblanca Galindo, governor of the State of Guerrero.

Deputy Carlos Reyes Torres, president of the Directive Table of the Congress of the State of Guerrero.

Engineer Félix Salgado Macedonio, Major of Acapulco.

Magistrate Edmundo Román Pinzón, president of the Superior Court of Justice of the State.

Lawyer Felipe Muñoz, President of the Mexican Olympic Committee.

Honorable members of the presidium.

Distinguished special guests of the Continent and the world.

Ladies and gentlemen:

The sport is an indispensable condition to reach the human integral development for that, I'm so glad to be with you to inaugurate the third Convention of Pan-American Olympic Sport and the respective Assembly.

In the name of the people and government of Mexico, I give the warmest welcome to all the participants in this important meeting.

I greeting warmly and esteem to Doctor Jacques Rogge, president of theInternational Olympic Committee, to who I truly thank for be here.

Also it is an honor to count with the presence of the representatives of the 42 Olympic Committees of America, Ministers of Sport and members of international sport organizations who attend this convention.

I especially thank to Doctor Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee, for authorized, according to it has communicated me by Mr. Mario Vázquez Raña, the possibility of organize, in 2010, the Olympic Festival of the Bicentennial here in Mexico.

This will be a sport joust that, under the cover of the Olympic Committee, will allow us to make concurs the best sportsmen worldwide to celebrate, along with the Mexicans, two centuries of freedom through the sport competitions recognized by the International Olympic Organization.

Also, I want to make recognition to the work that during many years has realized Mr. Mario Vázquez Raña, recently reelected as president of the Pan-American Sports Organization. I congratulate to him to impel events like this one, where the understanding between nations and their respective governments and the Olympic organisms is privileged.

I am convinced that not only in México, but all the countries of America recognize their great work in favor of the Olympism.

I celebrate that this Convention, friends, is celebrated in a as significant date as is the 40th Anniversary of the XIX Olympic Games, celebrated indeed in our country.

Today, México receive you, that is identified totally with the values of the Olympism, the values of peace, brotherhood, respect and understanding; the values of the concord between the nations.

These are, indeed, the ideals that animate to the Pan-American Sports Organization that is celebrating 60 years of life.

In Mexico we felt proud to belong to this organism. For that reason, my country does own the intentions of this meeting.

Although we are conscious that the competitiveness and the sport quality depend essentially of the work of each country, we also know that the international collaboration is powerful to advance more quickly in that direction.

The cooperation is one of the best resources that we have to open new avenues of progress to the sport of high performance in our American Continent.

I have total confidence in which the interchange of ideas and experiences will contribute to the athletic advance of our nations.

The sport is a fundamental activity for the countries, because it instills essential values for the human coexistence, like the perseverance, the discipline and the team work; is the vehicle par excellence to lead the transforming energy of the childhood and youth.

It is a strategic factor to forge the character and to temper the spirit of our towns.

The Mexicans know that the sport level that we have reached, doesn't correspond with the enormous potential of our population.

México has more than 105 million inhabitants, without telling million of Mexican that have migrated, particularly to the United States.

In our educative system, at the moment are enrolled more than 30 million students.

Many of our children count with the strenght, the capacity and the talent to obtain a successful sport trajectory, for that reason, society and Government shared the challenge to forge and to make way to a new generation of Mexican sportsmen of world-wide stature.

México has not managed to consolidate its sport development, probably for two fundamental reasons.

First, because an extensive culture of the sport and the physical activity does not exist, and consequently, the sport practice is not generalized; the sport practice is frankly little in the school, in the centers of work, the public spaces, the daily activities of our families.

The sedentary activities have been taking terrain in the diverse spheres of the daily life. Secondly, it's necessary to recognize it, because we have not managed to integrate, as country, an articulated and coordinated sport strategy. The common denominator of the triumphs of many Mexican competitors in international sport jousts is sustained in the effort, the tenacity and the individual talent, more than fruit of the collective or institutional work.

To change this reality, that makes difficult the formation of new talents and limits the harvest of triumphs of the national sport, the Mexicans are assuming the challenge to advance in three fronts:

One. To obtain that more and more child, young and adult realize sport or practice some physical activity in regular way. We have settled out to amass the sport practice, not only to look for athletes of high performance, that we will have, but also to fight the infantile obesity, that is a problem of public health and has constituted to our country as the Nation with the greater number of obese between the children and the young people in the world.

To revert the advance of diseases associated to the sedentary life, as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular diseases. And to avoid that our children and young people fall in the mortal trap of drugs.

And two. To redesign the Mexican sport system to offer supports and stimuli that truly contribute to the formation and the development of high performance competitors.

We are determined to take advantage of all the potential of a young Nation, a Nation of young people like Mexico, that has demonstrated that it can shine with own light in the most important competitions of the world.

To me, is a priority to make of the sport and the physical activity, a motor of the development of the Mexicans. I firmly believe that while more children and young people practice it, Mexico will count with more athletes of excellence and more opportunities of triumph.

To sum up, my country is working intensely, we will do in a coordinated way with the Mexican Olympic Committee, to construct a sport system around the aspirations of our society and the challenges of our time.

We must leave back the conformism and inertias and turn to the sport in one of the axes of the social and human development.

We want that Mexico also stops being in the sport, a country of exceptions, to become a country of opportunities.

Ladies and gentlemen:

This date is also very special for all our towns, because today is commemorated the Day of the Race, the Day of the Discovery of América. This anniversary reminds us the encounter of two fundamental civilizations and the sprouting of a new world.

The multi-ethnic and multi-cultural character of our nations is also reminded us today.

In so singular day, it is worth to remember that much our towns and the world need to the sport and the organized sport; much that the contemporary civilization, in this 21st century, requires of the values impelled by the Olympism.

In front of an epidemiologist transicion, for example, that the civilization faces and will cause that the new challenge of the health constitutes the generalization of diseases that are more difficult and more expensive to cure, as the diabetes and the cardiovascular diseases, originating for a sedentary life is, indeed, the sport and the Olympism an instrument of public policy that at continental level and global level it must be present in the life of our towns.

Or against the threat of the new slavery of the addictions, the organized sport and its movement summit, the Olympism, must be the liberating force that it avoids and rescue to the childhood and the youth of this new submission of the 21st century.

Or in a world convulsed again by hatred and the confrontation between nations, cultures or ideologies, the Olympism, like yesterday and as always, it must be the force that unites and contributes to the pacific coexistence between towns.

In an overwhelmed world by its problems, the organized sport and, of course, Olympism, must be the movement that gives a new spirit, a new breath and forges a new spirit of hope and security in itself to the humanity.

Facing the future, I want to tell you that the Mexicans we will continue contributing with Pan-American Olympic Organization, that we will continue working with absolute delivery and determination to receive here, in 2010, the Olympic Festival of the Bicentenary; and at 2011, the Pan-American Games of Guadalajara.

You can have the certainty that we will fulfill in time and forms with this commitment that we have with the countries that all you represent.

In México we are working by the friendship and the brotherhood between the towns, by the unit of all the towns and regions of our American Continent, from Alaska to Patagonia.

United by these solid bows that identify our nations, I invite to you to continue working together by a greater continental sport development and to extend the horizons of the international Olympism in our American Continent.

And now, if you allow it to me, I want that you accompany to me to make the Declaration of Inauguration by this Convention:

Today, October the 12th, 2008, being the 11 hours with 35 minutes, I declare officially inaugurated the Third Convention of Pan-American Olympic Sport, and I am sure that your works will be very fruitful and will contribute to the sport advance of the countries of America.

I wish you the biggest success.