Vancouver 2010 is now history. In the end, we saw truly exceptional Games. In fact I would like to join IOC President Jacques Rogge who said that we had ‘excellent and very friendly' Games in Vancouver. For the host nation Canada these Games represented a special achievement, not only thanks to the coveted gold medal in the men's ice hockey but also due to their triumph in the overall medals table.

We already knew that the weather would be our main adversary in Vancouver, which is why we feel very lucky with the sunny period that lasted for some 5-6 days and enabled us to stage the Alpine speed events and Ski Jumping competitions in excellent conditions. Without that and the untiring engagement of the thousands of VANOC staff and volunteers we would really have been in trouble.

Despite the initial problems at Cypress Mountain and thanks to massive VANOC effort we also saw high quality Freestyle and Snowboarding events. The Cross-Country skiers demonstrated their renowned physical qualities in coping with the changeable weather, skiing through rain, sleet and snow, on both hard and soft snow surfaces. The only disappointment from an athletic perspective was the large hill Gundersen event in Nordic Combined where the wind did not allow for stable conditions for all competitors on the hill. Even there, however, the competition jury acted correctly and according to the International Competition Rules.

The complete reports on the TV figures will take some time but the initial viewer numbers are very promising. For example in Germany we expect highly positive results based on the early indications. This also bodes well for the upcoming FIS World Championships in 2011, especially in Germany and Norway, both of whose teams had great national success. Overall, there was a broad distribution of the FIS medals, all in all 20 nations earning at least one. Some of our core nations may have fallen short of their expectations but this was made up by some of the smaller nations with great results.

I would especially like to highlight the very special achievements of Petra Majdic and Anja Pärson who overcame serious crashes to win Olympic medals as well as the historical performances of Simon Ammann with his second double victory repeating 2002, the complete medal sets collected by Aksel Lund Svindal and Bode Miller, as well as the impressive five medals won by Marit Bjoergen.