Austrian President Dr. Heinz Fischer Visits the Salzburg 2014 Bid

During a visit to Salzburg, the President of Austria, Dr. Heinz Fischer, met the head of the Salzburg 2014 Olympic bid, Fedor H. Radmann, and his team at the EM Stadium in Wals-Siezenheim. The stadium is earmarked as the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies if Salzburg is successful in its bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2014.

President Fischer is a total sports fanatic. In January he stood in the front row of 50,000 spectators at the Nightrace in Schladming and in February he attended the Winter Olympics in Turin, becoming the first Austrian head of state to attend the Games abroad. In Turin, Dr. Fischer also participated in a ceremony to honour Toni Sailer and Franz Klammer in the presence of IOC Honorary President, Juan Antonio Samaranch, as well as attending the men’s downhill event. More recently, on the final day of the successful UCI Cycling World Championship 2006 in Salzburg, he and over 100,000 enthusiastic spectators went away happy from the extremely successful event.

As President Fischer said, “I have always been a big sports fan and I actually do quite a lot of sport myself in private. I am very pleased that Salzburg is bidding for the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2014. Austria is a beautiful and safe country and we would love to show this to the world by hosting the Winter Olympics. So I would like to wish the team all the best and lots of success with the bid and with the final decision in Guatemala this coming July.”
 
Fedor Radmann added, “It is a great honour to be visited by the President of Austria and to know that he is one hundred percent behind the bid. President Fischer is very enthusiastic about sport and he is a dedicated representative of the important role of sport. It is important for the Salzburg 2014 team to know that our President is fully committed to supporting the bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in 2014.”