Innsbruck Poses Least Risk for 2012 Youth Olympic Games

(ATR) Innsbruck, Austria could be the favoriteto win the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games, the annoucememnt coming Friday. The IOC Evaluation Commission report says the plan for the Games in the Austrian sports center poses "minimal risk".

"Innsbruck’s plan to host the first Winter Youth Olympic Games is very well thought through and presents an integrated vision with a good balance of sport, culture and education," the committee led by IOC member Pernilla Wiberg concluded in its findings. It went on to highlight the organizers' reliance on existing structures, strong governmental support and experience as host of numerous prior sporting events.

Innsbruck's deputy mayor, Christoph Platzgummer, was not surprised when the city made the IOC's short list.

"The sports city of Innsbruck scores highly because of its existing and, more than anything else, ultra-modern sports facilities," Platzgummer said in a statement. "The investment in sports complexes, such as the two ice rinks and the bob and luge track in Innsbruck-Igls, was recognized by the IOC’s international experts and this played an important part in our winning the finalist nomination."

The proposal from Innsbruck indicates that the Games would occur Jan. 13 to 22, 2012, with all events occurring in two communities, Innsbruck and Seefeld. It also states that 58 percent of the medal events will occur in two arenas -- Olympiaworld Innsbruck and the Seefeld Arena.

Innsbruck plans to focus its 2012 Games on five key pillars: a Youth Olympic media lab, pairing project, sustainability project, arts project and the Olympic Youthfest 2012. These programs will be launched in the years leading up to the Games.

Central to Innsbruck's plans is a focus on new media. The bid committee hopes to get young people involved by creating newsrooms, television and film studios, radio and music studios, a digital photography lab and a web lab, all with the key purpose of creating content by youth.

On offer will also be an event called "The Meeting in the Mountains: The Ultimate Social Networking Event." This would be the first open gathering focused on social network sites that target youth. Scheduled to be held in Nordpark, the organizers hope to attract representatives and users of MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn and others. This is different from complaints from some social media outlets in Canada regarding their access to cover the 2010 Games.

While the evaluationcommission did have a favorable opinion of Innsbruck's proposal, there are some concerns. Two key areas the report highlighted were associated with the Olympic Village. These include the timeline for construction as well how additions to the original housing plans would impact the overall budget.

There was also some confusion over what the cost would be for obtaining visas and passports for competitors.

However, government officials are positive that these questions would be addressed.

"The Austrian bid committee has worked hard in recent months on the task of getting a convincing concept over to the IOC, one that would leave no questions unanswered," the deputy governor of the State of Tyrol, Hannes Gschwentner, said in a statement. "The short distances between the venues in Innsbruck and Seefeld definitely gave us an advantage over our rivals."

Harbin, China and Lillehammer, Norway were eliminated early in November.

A response from Innsbruck had not been received as of this story's release.

Written by

Trista McGlamery

For general comments or questions,

click here