Bach Receives Warm Welcome at Youth Olympic Games

(ATR) Some unexpected ice on the train tracks couldn’t derail Thomas Bach on his way to the Lillehammer 2016 Youth Olympic Games.

The train carrying the IOC president from the airport in Oslo on Wednesday stopped before reaching the station in Lillehammer due to ice from melting snow.

Bach and his entourage were met by a van, which completed the journey to the Radisson Blu Lillehammer Hotel. Spotlights beamed the YOG logo and mascot, Sjogg, onto the building in the twilight.

"I’m already looking forward to Saturday when sports starts," Bach told Around the Rings, "but before I’m sure I will see a great Opening Ceremony and the young leaders will make our stay here very comfortable and very successful."

Gerhard Heiberg, the IOC member who delivered the hugely successful 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games as CEO and president, and Siri Hatlen, the businesswoman who is chair of the Lillehammer 2016 YOG organizing committee, accompanied Bach to the hotel.

They were greeted by Norwegian Olympic and Paralympic Committee president Tom Tvedt and secretary general Inge Anderson. However, it was 18-year-old volunteer Trine Berg Hanssen whom Bach enjoyed chatting with the most during his welcome ceremony.

He asked the young task force member, who will fill in wherever needed during the YOG, what her duties were, where she is from and what sport she practiced – cross country, of course.

Bach said that it is people like Trine, "young leaders for the future of sport in Norway and beyond," who make it so important for the YOG to have a "learn and share" program.

"This is what the Youth Olympic Games are about," Bach told ATR, "and this is why we are so happy to be back here, to refresh the Olympic legacy, both on the infrastructure side as well as on the human scale. Because by funding the Athletes Village here, I think we will leave a great legacy to hundreds of students here, so this is something the IOC offers to future generations, students in Norway."

Bach added that by also funding all the travel and accommodation of athletes and officials, the IOC is "giving them the great opportunity to share this Olympic experience. And then by providing also the core of the education program, we are making sure that the Olympic values are promoted to the next generations. And this is again why I’m so happy to be welcomed not only by the men who left the first legacy here in ’94, but also by the lady who is helping to create this legacy with the Youth Olympic Games and to be welcomed by the future leaders of Norway and sports."

Although the capital city of Oslo pulled its bid for the 2022 Winter Games, Lillehammer has retained an interest in hosting the Games again. Staging the YOG is one measure of that desire.

Asked if he would urge Norway to bid for another Olympics, Bach smiled. "This is up to the Norwegians," he said as onlookers laughed. Bach gave Trine an Olympic Rings pin and invited her to dinner with his group – promising to "finish the dinner before you go to the disco," but she declined because she had other YOG obligations.

Trine explained to ATR later that she was at the hotel to take a photo for her local paper, "so then they said it was really important that I was going to say hello to the President, so I just did it and he was really happy."

While emphasizing that it is critical to "keep the Olympic spirit alive among the younger generations," Bach addressed the issue of teaching athletes to refrain from doping.

"The Youth Olympic Games are about sport and education," Bach said "and the zero tolerance policy of the IOC with regard to doping is also made very clear in the education programs. There, the athletes will be able to make first-hand experience of what we are doing in this respect with regard to prevention, but also with regard to sanctions."

Written by Karen Rosen in Lillehammer, Norway.

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