An Italian coach who helped the likes of Gustavo Thoeni and Piero Gros stun the skiing world in the 1970s has been appointed head coach of the Chinese skiing team.
Hermann Aigner, 70, was on Wednesday promoted from his previous post of ski instructor examiner for the Chinese Ski Association (CSA).
The veteran coach from Italy's far northern Alto Adige region, whose skills helped Thoeni to greatness and Gros to prominence in world slalom events as part of the so-called Valanga Azzurra (Blue Avalanche), has been in China for two years and has a ski school there.
The ex-Azzurri coach has been hired to bring China's slalom and downhill skating up to a par with its other winter events.
China hosted the sixth Asian Winter Games at Changchun in 2007 and won ten gold medals but none in Alpine skiing.
Its traditional strengths are in skating, where it has a number of Olympic and world champions, cross-country skiing and biathlon.
Skiing has become increasingly popular in China where there were an estimated 200 skiers in the early 1990s and hundreds of thousands today.
Chinese and international skiers flock to ten major resorts including Yabuli in Manchuria which held the third Asian Winter Games in 1996, where interest in Alpine skiing really took off.
