IOC President Bach expects high for Harbin Asian Winter Games

HARBIN - International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach, who is in Harbin attending the Asian Winter Games' opening ceremony, told Xinhua Friday the event would exceed expectations.

Bach said, "I'm here in the traditional winter sport center of China and see the great development over the last six years, knowing about the expertise of the people of Harbin and of China, organizing great sporting events. So the expectations are very high. As I know, China will even exceed these high expectations."

In February 2022, the Winter Olympics was successfully hosted in Beijing. With China about to open another grand winter sports event, Bach said that the Harbin Games represents a continuation of the Beijing Winter Olympic legacy.

"The Games is part of the legacy [of Beijing 2022] and the development in the winter sports in China is just breathtaking. China has more than 300 million people being familiar with winter sport and practicing winter sport. If you compare this with all the winter sport enthusiasts around the world, then you know that there was a winter sport before Beijing 2022 and there is a completely different worldwide winter sport after Beijing 2022," Bach said.

Bach is deeply impressed by some delegations' appearance at the Games, including newcomers. "I just met a group of athletes. You could see winter sport athletes from Qatar, from Kuwait, from Saudi Arabia. And in these countries, this excitement for winter sport is growing. This is how it should be that as many athletes in as many countries as possible, are benefiting from this great legacy of Beijing 2022," he said.

This year's Asian Winter Games has a record number of more than 1,200 athletes from 34 countries and regions registered for the event which runs from Feb 7 to 14.