It is a model not unlike that which human rights defenders and international human rights lawyers dream of. Secondly, let me draw attention to the geometrical configuration of the Olympic symbol. A fitting symbol of equality and difference. In sport, competitors start out at the same point - they are given equal opportunity. At the same time the whole point of the competition is differentiation - to find a winner.
Sport provides an ideal model of difference in performance, and equality in opportunity.
We even find, in the handicap system used in golf, a sporting precedent for positive discrimination. I won't exhaust the analogies. The conference papers will no doubt find other and better points of comparison between sports and human rights. Without for a moment detracting from the ethical force of this statement, I want to suggest nevertheless that it is the outstanding victories of men and women in sport which demonstrate to us, through undeniable and indisputable action, the defiance of discrimination, the struggle against adversity, and the untruths of prejudice, that are the hallmarks of our own efforts in the name of genuinely universal human rights. Have a great conference.