The final decisions have been taken, because each team is waiting for the December draw of the Euro 2012 groups, but there are indications that Swedes will live and train in Gdynia.
Gdynia is one of the fastest developing cities in Poland, and, according to recent ranking of “Przekrój”, it is the leader among the best places to live in.
Gdynia is famous for its cultural events of national importance or even of world importance, among which one should mention about Literary Award Gdynia Polish Film Festival, theater festival report and Open’er Festival. Especially the last event attracts each year to Gdynia people from around the world.
However, Gdynia is also the leader when it comes to sport in Poland. With regards to general opinion it is considered the capital city of the Polish basketball because of the best team of men in this kind of sport, as well as the best team of women, which for many years has been playing for medals and, in most cases, wins them. Gdynia is also the leader when it comes to handball, rugby and American football. One of the most important of the teams in the city is, of course, Arka, representing Gdynia in the football top league.
With such an attitude to the sport the organization of accommodations for the Euro 2012 in Gdynia seems to be quite natural. In order to host one of the best teams in Europe next year, preparations began immediately after selecting the hosts of the event, this is Poland and Ukraine.
– Preparations are being done according to the plan. The most important part was to build a new stadium in Gdynia, which has been done in the record time of 14 months. It can be used to play league matches, but it is also prepared to serve as a training center for the national team. We hosted the organizing committee of UEFA and they liked our facility. The second phase of preparations is the organization of an accommodation center for players. The ideal place for it is Hotel Nadmosrki, so we established cooperation with the hotel and prepared a joint application that was positively reviewed. The result of our collaboration is the place in the “catalogue” of UEFA – summarizes the progress of preparations Dariusz Szchwarz, the Deputy Director of GOSiR.
From what we were able to determine, Gdynia has already been visited by Germans twice (but they will choose Gdańsk), and also Frenchmen, Spaniards and Swedes. The stay of the latter representation would be an additional attraction for local fans who remember well that Arka owes its colors to Swedish sailors who once gave athletics clothes in national colors.
As we learned from Schwartz, Scandinavians are seriously considering a proposal from Gdynia.
– According to unofficial information, I know that the representation of Sweden is very interested in Gdynia. There is unofficial information from the Euro 2012 company that initial reservation of Gdynia has been made. The representative of Sweden said that he liked very much the colors of the stadium’s seats, which are yellow and blue. We joked that it would be good if they trained here, because it would give them the fighting spirit and they would make themselves at home – said smiling Schwarz.
The choice of this facility by the representation of Sweden would be also beneficial for their fans, because they would be able to come to Gdynia by ferry, and, from there, by public transport to the fan zone or to the stadium to support their teams during training.
Country representatives who visited Gdynia paid attention mainly to the distance from the airport, ferry base, good location in terms of the bypass as well as convenient communication between the training facility and Hotel Nadmorski.
Our hotel is organized in an useful way and maintain standards of the four-star hotel. If anyone needs a comfortable bed, peace and quiet, as well as nice and natural environment, he will find it with us. We have experience in doing things at the highest level – the summit meeting of Poland and Ukraine with the participation of President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Viktor Yushchenko, a stay of the girls from Miss World and two-week stay of the team preparing the visit of George Bush in Hel – says Krzysztof Sampławski, the director of Hotel Nadmorski.
An alternative to Hotel Nadmorski is the Haffner hotel in Sopot, which is part of an offer under the name “Centrum pobytowe Gdynia”.
