IOC pleased with Turin's preparations
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-06-11 06:26

Turin will be ready to host the 2006 Winter Olympic Games, but transport and accommodation arrangements still need to be addressed, the International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday.

IOC officials said they were "perfectly optimistic" the northern Italian city would be ready, but urged local authorities and the TOROC organizing committee to work hard on transport links between the city and the ski slopes 100 kms away.

"I'm very enthusiastic about what I saw. A lot of progress has been made and some of the sites are truly exemplary," said Jean-Claude Killy, the IOC official in charge of monitoring Turin's progress.

"The only thing we are worried about is the bobsleigh run, where we can't waste a single moment," the triple Olympic gold medallist added after a three-day inspection of the Olympic building sites.

The bobsleigh run was seriously delayed when workers found asbestos at the planned site and had to move to another mountain. It is now due to be finished by January 2005, just in time for its test event, the bobsleigh World Cup.

TOROC held its first test event at the Sestriere ski resort this year and while the piste were hailed as excellent, the hotels left something to be desired.

"Physically there are just not enough rooms. And the quality of what there is doesn't meet the needs of the media, athletes and officials who will be at the Olympics," Killy said.

Killy also warned that transportation between the city and mountains would come under scrutiny when the IOC next inspects Turin in November.

"People in the villages just weern't ready or enthusiastic about a test event two years before the real thing. The quality of some hotels and the service at others wasn't what you would expect," TOROC president Valentino Castellani told reporters.

"But it was a useful wake-up call and it shouldn't be difficult to resolve the problem."

The main bone of contention between the IOC and TOROC had been plans to award all the medals in Turin's elegant Piazza Castello, raising fears that many athletes would get tired trekking down from the mountains in mid-competition.

Castellani said the groups had reached a compromise to award 50 of 84 medals in the main square, some of them one day late, and that the others would be given out in the mountains.

One of Castellani's biggest challenges is to excite beach-loving Italians about the Winter Games, but Killy was brimming with enthusiasm about marketing plans, including the Olympic mascot, due to be unveiled in September.

"We were surprised by the quality of what we saw. This is the best of Italy - warmth, friendliness, creativity and professionalism," Killy said.

But Castellani's main hope is that seeing Italian athletes at the Athens games in August will inspire people to buy tickets for the Turin games when they go on sale this November.

"A few Italians on the podium and the clock counting to Turin should help hugely," he said.

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