Klammer enjoyed a highly successful career and his greatest moment came in Innsbruck at the 1976 Winter Olympics, where he won gold in dramatic fashion the downhill.

Innsbruck has hosted the Winter Olympic Games twice, in 1964 as well as 1976, and Klammer is sure that this will help the organisers of the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics to put on a superb show in January.

"They are ready, everything is ready to go and there are no problems," he told insidethegames.

"Organising should not be a problem, they have done it twice already I think they can do it a third time - Innsbruck is ready."

He believes that the Youth Olympics will ensure that the stars of the future are better prepared when it comes to competing at senior international competitions.

"They [will be] prepared for the real event, so they know what it is like.

"When they go to a World Cup and compete they will know how to do it already.

"You'll know what it's like to be an Olympian, to get together at the Olympic Village and share experiences with other athletes from other sports.

"And they know how to win if they do so at the Youth Olympics, and to know how to win is the key thing."

At the peak of his career Klammer was dominant in his discipline, claiming gold in combined alpine skiing and silver in the downhill at the 1974 World Championships.

He then went on to dominate the World Cups between 1975 and 1978, and won a fifth title in 1983, more than any other alpine skier in history.

Klammer was speaking to insidethegames at Lilian Baylis Old School, where he was with Laureus Sport for Good Foundation's visit to see and take part in sport sessions.

It is part of the Sport for Good Global Summit, bringing together practitioners running community based projects with the support of Laureus, using sport as a tool to tackle a range of social issues such as violence and knife crime.

The Innsbruck 2012 Winter Youth Olympics take place from January 13 and 22 and will look to build on the success of the first ever Youth Olympic Games, held in Singapore last year.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]