August 28, 2008 – The XXIX Olympic Summer Games in Beijing 2008 are now history and the skiing world’s attention will slowly switch to the coming winter’s highlights, including the FIS World Championships in Val d’Isère (FRA), Liberec (CZE), Inawashiro (JPN) and Sunwoo Resort, Gangwon Province (KOR).

As member of the International Olympic Committee, FIS President Gian Franco Kasper attended the Games for their entire duration. Impressed by the quality of his most recent Olympic experience, he commented: “From both organizational and athletic perspectives, the Beijing Games were absolutely on the highest level ever seen; they were truly gigantic!” He added:” In China, with its 1.3 billion inhabitants, everything is bigger than elsewhere in the world, and so were the 2008 Games. The organizing committee had spared neither effort nor time to perfectly prepare absolutely everything, to the tiniest of details.”

“The city of Beijing has changed enormously during the years of Games preparation. What impressed me most, however, was the pure excitement of the people working on the Olympic team, the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who participated in making the Games reality. They were so very proud to have been selected as part of the organizing team and to show to the world what their country is capable of. In short, to show China to the world! I was constantly awed by the friendliness of everyone I encountered no matter what their task was in the organization.”

In terms of the climatic conditions, President Kasper remarked that the organizers even managed to find a solution to the feared smog-problem. “During the Games, the air quality was absolutely fine. Thanks to the incredible obedience of the Chinese people, the government managed to reduce the traffic levels dramatically. Yet the weather was and is hot and humid – there is nothing to do about that!”

Looking forward to the legacy of the Games, he noted: “The politics are not what we are about as a sports organization. For us the future challenge will be that it will be impossible to outperform Beijing 2008. The future organizers will have to focus on making their event special in their own ways. There is much that we could learn from Beijing in terms of logistical and technical details but it will not possible to repeat elsewhere what we saw there; the 2008 Games were unique in so many respects, not least in terms of financial and human resources. For China, the Games will mean an opening in direction of the West, at a minimum through the thousands of people that had learned English. For sport in general, the Games were a milestone as there can be no doubt about the current importance of sport in the Chinese society.”

Referring to the consequences to the world of skiing, he concluded: “It is this focus on sport that is also likely to benefit us in skiing. The leadership of the Chinese Ski Association is very determined to develop all the skiing disciplines in their country and to breach the gap to the world’s leading nations. But they have an even greater opportunity on the recreational level. With the sheer size of the country’s population, it will be a success for us if just a few percent become skiing enthusiasts. A great basis in the number of regular skiers will automatically lead to success at title events, rather than them having to focus on the gold medals from the start.”

China will host the 24th World University Games, also known as the ‘2009 Universiade,’ which will be held in the country’s skiing capital city Harbin, 800km north of Beijing. Harbin is the former organizer of the Asian Winter Games and is also one of the four remaining candidates for staging the first-ever Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012, the host of which will be elected in November/December this year.