Nordic Worlds Come To Emerging Asian Market For The First Time

Snow sports in Asia have come a long way since the first major event on the continent in 1972, and Japan may soon no longer be the sole centre of attention.

Japan has hosted the most global snow events: Winter Olympics 1972 in Sapporo and 1998 in Nagano, the world alpine skiing championships 1993 in Morioka and the world freestyle championships 1997 in Izuna.

Now the Nordic skiing worlds come to Sapporo from Thursday until March 4, with ski-jumpers, Nordic combined and cross-country skiers competing for world honours in their sport for the first time in Asia.

No wonder the organizing committee speaks of "the beginning of a new chapter in the history of the 47 championships."

Japan is the most successful Asian nation in Nordic skiing, with the ski-jumpers the top attraction.

Yukio Kasaya famously led a normal hill medal sweep at the 1972 Games, Japan got large hill gold from Kazuyoshi Funaki and the team title 1998 in Nagano. Japan has several ski-jumping golds at the worlds as well.

Kenji Ogiwara was one of the best Nordic combined skiers ever, winning worlds gold in 1993 and 1997.

Yoshiro Ito, the Sapporo organizing committee chief and vice-president of the governing ski body FIS, expressed his hope that the staging of the Nordic worlds will further boost ski sport in Asia.

"I am convinced that the upcoming World Ski Championships in Sapporo will help us win many new skiing fans among the Asian people.

"Asian countries are still less developed in skiing, and therefore, the publicity for our event together with the fascinating sporting performances will do wonders to promote skiing across Asia," he said.

China and South Korea are slowly catching up as well in snow sport, no longer making headlines in short track and long track speed-skating alone.

China has produced world and Olympic champions in popular freestyle skiing and famously managed a biathlon worlds silver from Yu Shumei in 2000.

China and South Korea have made efforts in ski-jumping as well with the help of private investors and foreign coaches like Austrian Heinz Koch and German Jochen Danneberg.

Success is needed to lure big championships to the countries which are investing heavily in winter sport facilities and resorts.

"China needs to think about hosting the Winter Olympic Games but we have to go a long way before really making it. Besides the facilities, Chinese people need to pay much more attention to the winter sports and our athletes have to pull out convincing results on ice and snow," said Chinese Olympic Committee honorary president He Zhenliang in late January.

South Korea's Pyeongchang only narrowly lost the race for the 2010 Winter Olympics to Vancouver and is on the shortlist again for 2014, with IOC inspectors in town this week.

The recent staging of the sixth Asian Winter Games in Changchun, China, further underlined the rise of Asia in winter sports.

Asia's Olympic Council (OCA) is promoting winter sports through scholarships and modern technology even allows winter sports in the unlikeliest areas.

"There are six ice hockey arenas already established in Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait is planning to build its winter sports development zone, which is aiming at developing its winter sports on the ice events," said OCA director general Husain Al Musallam.

"The OCA firmly believes that there will be more and more countries and regions to be involved in winter sports. There is always a possibility in sports when someone makes efforts."

The emerging Asian winter sport not only concerns athletes but the winter sport industry in general.

The importance of the issue was underlined when the 2006 edition of a winter technology fair in Italy was accompanied by a special congress on the issue "China, the challenge."

By John Bagratuni, Dpa
© 2007 DPA