Novo Mesto Olympic Centre came to life with the VARCITIES Project

date: 26. 08. 2024

The Novo Mesto Olympic Centre is a top-tier sports facility that offers citizens excellent conditions for recreation in all seasons, and as a national training centre for cycling, athletics, swimming and triathlon it attracts many Slovenian and foreign athletes to Novo Mesto. With a covered velodrome and an athletics hall, it is unique within a radius of 500 km, and in combination with a swimming pool as well as green areas for exercise, it represents an extremely attractive and functional sports and recreation environment, where professional and recreational sports coexist in the embrace of nature. The construction of the Novo Mesto Olympic Centre was financially supported by the European VARCITIES Project, which aims to promote physical activity, a healthier lifestyle and a better quality of life for all citizens.

The Novo Mesto Olympic Centre in Češča vas is part of the investments over the recent years made by Novo Mesto Municipality in recreational and sports infrastructure. The Centre has grown on a degraded military area, where an open velodrome was built in 1996 for the needs of the Junior World Cycling Championship. In 2018, the Novo Mesto Municipality renovated it into an indoor multi-purpose facility for cycling and athletics , and in 2023, the centre was completed with a swimming pool complex, including a 25-meter indoor pool.

The Centre is distinguished by extensive green areas, which include an equestrian centre and a recreation park with a triathlon track, a motorcycle park for children, a sensory path for the blind and partially sighted, and a picnic area. Professional sports facilities are complemented by areas for recreational and other related activities that are closer to nature and suitable for children, youth, the elderly, people with special needs, occasional visitors and hikers. The development plan for the Olympic Centre also includes setting up a camp and the construction of a 50-meter outdoor swimming pool in the future.

The vision of the VARCITIES Project is innovative approaches to promote health and well-being

Part of the infrastructure and activities in the Olympic Center Novo Mesto was also financed with the help of the VARCITIES European Project which is co-financed by the European Union's Research and Innovation Programme Horizon 2020. We decided to participate in the project based on the clear need to upgrade the excellent infrastructure in the Olympic Centre with innovative approaches, development of the offer and acquisition of knowledge in an extremely advanced consortium of partners from all over Europe (Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, Malta, Italy).

The vision of the VARCITIES Project is to realize innovative ideas by establishing sustainable models to increase the health and well-being of all citizens, with an emphasis on children, young people, the elderly and vulnerable groups. VARCITIES has set itself the ambitious goal of accelerating innovation in various urban environments by making the most of natural solutions by intertwining digital, social and cultural aspects. Public spaces are envisioned as people-centered areas that support creativity, inclusion, and the health of the citizens.

The VARCITIES Project financed a series of infrastructure and substantive measures in Češča vas in five sections:

• nature-based solutions, where, among other things, we planted native tree species of the area and took care of additional greening of the Olympic Centre,
• additional recreational areas and tools – a trim track with five stations for physical training,
• measures for the accessibility and use of the Olympic Centre for physically challenged individuals, one of the most important ones is the pool lift for the disabled, which was selected in the process of co-creating project solutions with stakeholders,
• an information system for capturing, processing data and an integrated management of activities in the Olympic Park, which is also connected to the common VARCITIES Health & Wellbeing platform, where the data and approaches of all seven pilot cities of the project are presented,
• the IoT sensors for monitoring air quality and climate conditions in the centre, as well as digital solutions for measuring user activity.

The combination of natural solutions and modern technology for the active life of all citizens

A large part of the measures of the VARCITIES Project was focused on connecting different parts of the Olympic Centre into a comprehensive offer for all generations and target groups of users, with the aim of encouraging a healthy lifestyle. In doing so, we not only connect activities in facilities, but also offer the experience of spending free time in a green natural environment, which gives recreation and sports a special dimension. For this goal, we used a series of the most advanced digital solutions that combine natural solutions and modern technology.

In addition to the aforementioned infrastructure, an important part of the project includes a series of activities and events which are carried out together with the project partners in the Olympic Center and are aimed at several target groups:

• children, where our goal is to increase their motor skills and attract them to healthy patterns of spending their free time,
• the elderly, where we want to attract them to forms of movement that can be permanent even in the third period of life,
• all sensory and mobility impaired individuals, where we bring them closer to movement and recreation in an environment that is typically not available to them due to their disability.

All events were extremely well attended and accepted by the users, so that we can already see that the design of the project's sustainability is guaranteed even after its completion.

The municipality of Novo Mesto received EUR 536,994.89 in co-financing as part of the project, and the Novo Mesto Development Centre, which also participates as a partner in the project, received EUR 146,087.50 for the activities it carries out. The VARCITIES Project will take place in the Novo Mesto Olympic Centre until the middle of 2025, and during its course we have already exchanged invaluable experience and built competences in the development of solutions in the field of healthy lifestyle and digital technologies with the other six partner cities. The entire VARCITIES Project is financed by the EU in the amount of slightly more than EUR 11 million.

Read more about the project at varcities.eu and olimpijskicenter-nm.si