Top athletes from around the world are gathering in Central Otago for the fourth biennial Winter Games and chief executive Arthur Klap cannot wait for the action to begin, he tells Robert Van Royen.
After two years of planning, it is no wonder Winter Games chief executive Arthur Klap cannot wait for the action to begin.
The fourth biennial Winter Games start in Central Otago today, with qualifying for the first of four world cup events getting under way at Cardrona at 9am.
About 600 athletes, including some of the best in the world, have come to Queenstown, Wanaka and Naseby for one of the world's biggest winter festivals - and the only one in the southern hemisphere.
Klap said he and his eight senior staff members started planning for the event as soon as the last one finished two years ago.
Forty-five fulltime staff have been on the job since the start of the month, and about 1500 volunteer positions have been filled to help the games run over the next couple of weeks.
Entries were ''maybe slightly down'' on 2013, but Klap said the quality of entries was high this year.
''We've got a lot of Olympic medallists and Winter Games medallists,'' he said.
''We're certainly going to have a great competition. It's certainly sitting right up there with the great snow sports events.''
While this year's four world cup events do not count towards qualification for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, they have still helped attract some world-class athletes.
Men's and women's slalom world champions Ted Ligety and Mikaela Shiffrin, both from the United States, are two of the best athletes set to compete. Both will compete in the dual slalom competition tomorrow night, which will be held around the opening ceremony.
It is being raced under lights and has $30,000 in prize money, and both the men's and women's races have attracted international fields.
Ligety, who is training at Round Hill ski field at Tekapo with the US men's team, will travel to Coronet Peak by helicopter tomorrow afternoon in time for the event.
''We've got the best female and male skier in the world. You can't get better than that,'' Klap said.
Tomorrow night is the first time the opening ceremony has been held at Coronet Peak, but Klap is confident a large crowd will show up to watch it and the dual slalom.
''Whether it's 2000 or 4000, I'm not really sure. What we do know is there are 250 VIPs coming up the hill. If that's indicative of the interest, I think we're going to get a really good crowd for the opening.''
In addition to world-class fields, plenty of New Zealand talent will be on show over the next couple of weeks, including Janina Kuzma, Christy Prior and Wells brothers Jossi, Byron, Beau-James and Jackson.
With 30cm of fresh snow falling a couple of nights ago, they will have ''phenomenal'' conditions to compete in, Klap said.
The weather forecast for the first few days of competition is good, meaning the slalom and two of the world cup events - snowboard slopestyle and freeski halfpipe - should run as scheduled.
''If we can get them out of the way and the weather supports that, that's fantastic,'' Klap said.
''We're pretty experienced at managing snow and weather conditions. We have a lot of contingency actions we can take if it turns. If it's a three-run final, they do one or two runs. Or sometimes we take the results from the qualifying run the previous day.''
Racing can be held as late as 5pm if required, and in worst-case scenarios, competition can be pushed back a day.
With two years of planning in the bag, it is time for one thing only.
''Let's go, let's start,'' Klap said.
