The new head of the Switzerland-based International Ski Federation said during a brief visit to Salt Lake City Friday that preparations for the 2002 Winter Games look good - so far.
"At the moment we have no problems. I can't give you a guarantee for the future," said Gian Franco Kasper, president of the organization responsible for overseeing international ski competitions including the Olympics.Kasper said he came to Utah to meet with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association based in Park City. Since his election last month, he's been traveling around the world to meet with top national ski organizations.
While he was here, Kasper said, he took the opportunity to talk with leaders of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee about the 2002 Games, the next Winter Olympics.
Among the issues discussed was an effort by SLOC Senior Vice President of Games Dave Johnson to hire a top ski federation official to oversee preparations for the ski jumping events.
That official, Walter Hofer, is staying put. "We're not going to give our top expert," Kasper said. However, the federation is sending its experts to Salt Lake on a regular basis to inspect Snowbasin and other competition sites.
Johnson said bringing Hofer on board full time would have been good for the organizing committee. Work is getting under way on two massive ski jumps at the Utah Winter Sports Park near Park City.
And SLOC is under pressure from the International Olympic Committee to hire sports officials as soon as possible. Several, including an alpine skiing director, have been named recently.
Despite Kasper's reluctance to let Hofer go, Johnson said he's a friend of SLOC. "We're thrilled that he's now the president. We've had a good working relationship with him" since Salt Lake was bidding for the Games.
Kasper had served as secretary general of the ski federation since 1979 and was selected by unanimous acclamation to replace outgoing president Marc Hodler.
Hodler, a powerful International Olympic Committee member from Switzerland, heads the IOC Coordination Commission overseeing preparations for 2002. That commission meets in Salt Lake City next week.
Also on Kasper's agenda Friday was adding a new event to the sports program, a sprint in Nordic combined, which would require competitors to complete a 5-kilometer cross-country ski course and a 90-meter ski jump within an hour.
An hour might not be long enough, though, since the ski jump is located at the Utah Winter Sports Park. Kasper said the ski federation may ask the IOC to extend the event to 1 1/2 hours.
The sprint is intended to appeal especially to American television audiences who are unfamiliar with cross-country and jumping events. "It shows a lot better than the long 50K, where athletes disappear in the woods," Kasper said.
Only men compete in Nordic combined events. Kasper said that's because a medical study to determine the effect of ski jumping on women's reproductive systems has not yet been completed.
That isn't the reason that women won't be competing in other ski jumping events, though. That's because there just aren't enough women jumpers at the Olympic level, he said.
"Medals would be what I call `cheap medals,' " Kasper said. He said it was wrong to introduce the competition for "political reasons." IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch has said it won't make the 2002 program.
SLOC is expected to submit a complete list of events to the IOC at the end of the year. The list could also include another new event - snowboarding boardercross.
"The kids really like it," Kasper said, perhaps because several boarders start down a course at the same time and pushing is permitted. "In principle, for the time being, there are no rules," he said.
Kasper said there's no need to build a separate Olympic Village at the site of the cross-country skiing and biathlon competitions, Wasatch Mountain State Park near Mid-way.
Some countries are pushing for accommodations at the remote site that are similar to the housing being built for athletes and officials at the University of Utah.
SLOC has been told by the International Olympic Committee to find alternative housing such as motel rooms for competitors who don't want to travel an hour or more to the state park.
Kasper said such rooms are sufficient. He said the cross-country skiers and biathletes don't need to be provided with the same services offered at the Olympic Village, such as health-care and recreation facilities.
"That costs too much in my eyes. There is no reason to have the dentistry and other services. Hotels are good enough," Kasper said.
The pressure for SLOC to build a second full-fledged village, he said, is coming from Norway and other Scandinavian countries traditionally strong in those sports.