On Tuesday the 7th of February, during the visit by the IOC Executive Board and Athletes’ Commission to the Olympic Village in Torino, IOC President Jacques Rogge will launch an appeal to all the participants in the XX Olympic Winter Games to sign the Olympic Truce declaration.

For the whole of the Games, athletes and officials can support the Olympic Truce by signing one of the three walls situated in the three Olympic Villages, in Torino, Sestriere and Bardonecchia.

This a symbolic gesture by which the signatories commit themselves to acting as “Truce Ambassadors”, promoting peace and understanding through sport in their countries of origin.

Since September 2005, the IOC, the Organising Committee for the XX Olympic Winter Games in Torino in 2006 (TOROC), the Italian government, the city and province of Torino, the region of Piedmonte, and the Italian National Olympic Committee (NOC) have launched various initiatives to promote the Olympic Truce and its values. Meetings, conferences, exhibitions and other events have taken place on the themes of peace, cooperation and justice.

The tradition of the "Truce" or "Ekecheiria" was established in Ancient Greece in the 9th century BC by the signature of a treaty between three kings. During the Truce period, athletes, artists and their families, as well as ordinary pilgrims, could travel in total safety to participate in or attend the Olympic Games and return afterwards to their respective countries.

In the modern era, the first Truce initiatives were launched by the IOC in 1992.

Since 1993, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly expressed its support for the IOC by unanimously adopting, before each edition of the Games, a resolution entitled "Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal".

Thus, on 3 November 2005, with some 100 days to go until the opening of the Torino 2006 Games , the 60th Session of the United Nations General Assembly passed the Olympic Truce Resolution, put forward by the nation of Italy on behalf of the IOC, and sponsored by 190 member states of the General Assembly.

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