ATR Q&A: FIS President on Vancouver Olympics, 2018 Race

FIS President Gian-Franco Kasper tells Around the Rings transportation and not snow may be his biggest concern for the Vancouver Olympics. More in the Around the Rings Q&A.

Around the Rings: How are things looking in Vancouver?

Gian-Franco Kasper: Fine. On Cypress Mountain there is a lack of snow but we have enough time. Personally, I am very optimistic that there is no problem and the rest will work out.

We, of course, knew about the weather conditions in Vancouver since the bid.

ATR: Vancouver is promising that everything will be run on schedule.

GFK: Since 1960, we have never had a world championship or an Olympics without postponement— normally in the downhill which most critical.

ATR: How comfortable are you with VANOC and their ability to manage the situation and make it right?

GFK: They have had a lot of time to make preparation. At the moment of changes and postponements, I do not know how flexible they can be. They have emergency plans. I can tell you honestly from past experience that we will make a decision, inform the IOC and that is it.

We cannot wait for hours and hours. We have our own technicians on the hill, which are professionals . The final decision in principle is made by the weather forecast. If something has to be changed, we have to move very quickly. It cannot wait for all the bureaucratic requests that will come up automatically.

In principle, I believe that the people involved in the sports part are flexible enough and have gained enough experience to know how things have to happen. Of course, the first postponement is always the worst because people fear that they do something wrong.

ATR: What your thoughts about the venues in Whistler?

GFK: They are fine, absolutely. We have great courses up there for alpine skiing. There is no doubt. We have been included in part of the construction of it. It is really according to our wishes. In regard to cross country skiing and jumping, we had our own experts up there for several years now. It will work out fine. There is no question.

The only problem that we have in both areas (cross country and jumping) is spectators. There is almost no room for spectators. It is very tight but on the other hand it might be good because transportation is not so good to go up to Whistler.

ATR: You have been going there for years now. What are your thoughts about the improvements on the Sea to Sky Highway.

GFK: It is great improvement, there is no doubt but that does not solve the problem. There still is quite a distance between Vancouver and Whistler. Of course the traveling time is less now but don't forget the Olympic traffic. The worst thing is that everybody will have to go up by bus. That does not make it easy includingfor spectators. The athletes, official and so on (others) are living up Whistler, so for them it does not make any difference.

I feel sorry particularly for the media. If they live in Richmond (a suburb of Vancouver) they must first go by bus to the Main Media Centre and up by bus to Whistler and then the whole thing back. So they spend more than half the day on a bus.

ATR: I guess we find out about transportation to Whistler on the first day, Feb 13., with the men's downhill?

GFK: Most of the media wanted to live in the Whistler area and then of course because of cost or whatever the chief editors of newspapers saw much cheaper accommodations and that is in Richmond. They don't care if their guys are on a bus or not so they moved them to Richmond and now they have to travel.

ATR: Is it more difficult than going to the alpine venues in Torino?

GFK: I think it is more difficult because of purely the buses. In Torino, a lot of people lived in the area but here you either live in Vancouver or Whistler. Whatever is in between, you do not find enough accommodations. You could go up to Whistler and find out that the event is postponed until the next day so you go back for nothing. You come up the next day, postponed again and down again. I can't imagine how much they will like it.

ATR: What do you think about the contest for the 2018 Olympics among Annecy Munich, and PyeongChang?

GFK: We have three good candidates although we do not have the final files yet. We all know about France, Germany and Korea from experience. We know that they have the potential to do excellent events.

The question is rather "what does the IOC want?". Do you want to go to France or Germany where you have a skiing festival or do you want to do something for the development of winter sports in East Asia, which would then be Korea? I think this is a major decision in many respects before the technical aspects.

ATR: Do you think bringing the Olympics to Korea would have an impact of the development of winter sports in the area?

GFK: I hope so. One of the reasons why Korea wants to host the games and that is why we have world cup events in Korea. We had the world championships in snowboarding there last year to help the development in this area. It is important for winter sports to have a base in Korea but that does not mean that I am against the other candidates.

ATR: How are things going on in Sochi, the site of the 2014 Winter Games?

GFK: They are in full construction now. We are relatively happy. The courses for our Alpine event are more or less finish. The snowboard freestyle, we still have to make a decision on where to make it but I think we have enough time. For cross country and biathlon we have to come together and are still waiting for the plans.

We are not worried about timelines. That should work out. There is enough time. In 2011/2012 we will have the first world cup events in all our events. We have to do that so we have enough chances if necessary to change something.

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Written by Ed Hula.