January 2, 2008
Cycling Federation Costa Rica on the Way to Happiness
Costa Rica, Christmas 2007. It was an exciting, colorful and actionpacked weekend when the Costa Rica Cycling Federation was the main attraction for the Christmas weekend and staged several cross country cycling racing events. Amidst the ongoing activites which attracted thousands of attendees was The Way to Happiness, namely President TWTH Costa Rica Yadira Orias who presented the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize and current President of the Republic of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, a personal copy of the book The Way to Happiness.
A couple of years ago the Costa Rica Cycling Federation enthusiastically adopted TWTH as a sponsor to launch a national values campaign alongside a series of bicycle races with national cycling teams from the countries of Switzerland, Costa Rica, Columbia, Ecuador, Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, and Panama participating. This fact has been anounced before and during the cycling events. The event attracts major sponsors and extensive national media coverage.
TV interviews about The Way to Happiness have been done on smaller sports channels (TV 33 Cycling Programs produced by the Cycling Federation - with DVD spots) and TWTH DVD spots were also played on National TV 13.
During the weekend TWTH staged different events to get out the message of The Way to Happiness: In Heredia Central Park where the cyclists reached the finish line after a long cross-country race, TWTH Costa Rica and its volunteers distributed TWTH booklets to some 300 public. In Cartago TWTH, during a reception of bike racers on a drizzly day, about 150 public in the area were given TWTH booklets by volunteers. The MC of the event stage played the introduction to TWTH from the Spanish TWTH AudioBook. In Santa Ana TWTH participated in a reception of bike racers and an eventual presentation on the stage to the awarded winners, with their own copies of TWTH booklets.
In Parque La Sabana President Yadira Orias TWTH presented the winners of the entire race of cycling teams with TWTH booklets during a final awards ceremony that was set up to conclude the series of races. All in all over 5,000 booklets were handed out to the event attendees during the weekend.
