AUSTRIA: OLYMPICS - Salzburg prepares final presentation ahead of its bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics

Record ID: 329797

  • Title: AUSTRIA: OLYMPICS - Salzburg prepares final presentation ahead of its bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympics
  • Date: 3rd July 2007
  • Summary: MOZART SOUVENIRS IN SHOP WINDOW MOZART CHOCOLATE BALLS ON DISPLAY IN WINDOW
  • Embargoed: 18th July 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Austria
  • Country: Austria
  • Topics: Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVA83AEZ8H3LNVLMIW91AUFZXFNG
  • Story Text: Salzburg aims to turn attention away from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this week as the city makes its final presentation in the bid to stage the 2014 Winter Olympics.
    The Austrian city of Salzburg aimed to turn attention away from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart this week as the city makes its final presentation in the bid to stage the 2014 Winter Olympics.
    Salzburg faces competition from Sochi in Russia and South Korea's Pyeongchang to hosts the event.
    Salzburg has long thrived on its status as Mozart's birthplace and as the setting for the film The Sound of Music.
    However after putting its cultural figureheads to the fore of its presentation for the 2010 Games and losing to Vancouver , Salzburg is not planning to woo IOC members with magic flutes or singing nuns this time around.
    While Mozart remains omnipresent on the t-shirts, chocolate wrappings, souvenir plates, figurines and even after-shaves of the countless tourist boutiques cluttering the narrow alleyways of Salzburg's picturesque old town, the bid organisers have also been keen to showcase the city's less kitschy elements.
    Judging by the tour programme drawn up for the IOC's evaluation commission in March, they are likely to concentrate as much on the city's new cliff-top modern art museum or on its three universities as on the tourist bus cliches.
    While the organizers of the bid say that the event will put the emphasis back on youth and revive the flagging image of winter sports among Europe's youngsters, Salzburg has certainly done much in recent years to give itself a younger, hipper image.
    As well as a staggering number of Irish pubs, the city boasts a fair spattering of trendier bars and restaurants, several of them owned by Salzburg-based Austrian soft-drink billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz.
    Mateschitz has also helped revive the city's sporting fortunes, buying up Salzburg's soccer and ice hockey teams and turning them into national champions.
    Even if they have not yet seen Salzburg's new face, many IOC members will already be familiar with the city and its planned Olympic venues, many of which are already well established as world cup and world championship venues.
    "We have experience in organising sports events, including large sports events. The nation, the country, the city back such events with their expertise and their experience. I think what's really important is that if Salzburg gets the games it would give Salzburg and Austria the chance to give something back to the Olympic movement. Austria has for years profited from sports events and this would be the possibility." Thomas Rothauer, Head of "Salzburg 2014" Marketing told Reuters.
    Having surprisingly crashed out in the first round of voting four years ago, the Salzburg team may have to ditch typical Austrian hospitality for some more aggressive lobbying as they take on their exotic Russian and South Korean rivals.
    Maybe they could still learn something from Mozart. No stranger himself to winning big contracts, the composer once wrote in a letter to this father that "whoever is most impertinent has the best chance".
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