Speaking at a press conference ahead of tonight's Opening Ceremony, he highlighted the 2012 Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck as an example of Austria's success and having viewed what he describes as "absolutely incredible" venues here, he said he's not surprised that the first-ever Olympic event to be hosted by two nations has the necessary infrastructure in place to be equally successful.

"We never had a worry or a doubt that the two countries were compatible and from what I've heard, the team spirit between the two Committees has been a huge success," Hickey said.

"Liechtenstein is also very strong on winter sports and has lovely conditions for it, but they have a much, much smaller population than Austria so they needed assistance."

Hickey said the two things he is most pleased about are the fact that more nations than ever before, 45, are competing at the event and that the Opening Ceremony is being televised, a first for the EYOF, on Austrian channel ORF Sport +.

"It's a great benefit to the sports and to the young athletes competing," he added.

"The only complaint I'm hearing is that the members of the [EYOF] Coordination Commission have very little work to do because everything is in such good shape.

"Let's hope it keeps that way and we're looking forward to a week of great activity."

Philipp Groborsch, EYOF 2015 chief executive, says everything is under control ©ÖOC/GEPA



Also present at the press conference were Princess Nora of Liechtenstein, Austrian National Olympic Committee President Karl Stoss, EYOF executive board head Peter Mennel and EYOF 2015 chief executive Philipp Groborsch.

Groborsch, who was head of operations and technology at Innsbruck 2012, reiterated that everything is under control ahead of the start of competition tomorrow.

"All competitions will take place as in the schedule," he said.

"This is the good news and I have no bad news.

"Sometimes I'm a little bit afraid that there are no major problems but there aren't at the moment."

The Opening Ceremony is scheduled to begin at the Montafon Nordic in Tschagguns, the ski jumping venue, at 19:30pm CET and Groborsch spoke of his gratitude to the volunteers who have organised the show, which focuses on the "Pleasure of Sports". 

"They've trained now for four months and the overall programme is designed and created by volunteers," he added.

"And this is, I think, a success of this event - we integrated volunteers, we integrated the citizens.

"We integrated all the people and a lot of youth."

Two young artists - Carmen Wyler and Thomas Pegram, from Liechtenstein and Austria respectively - have been chosen to sing the national anthems of the host countries, while the official inauguration will be made by Austria's President Heinz Fischer and Prince Alois of Liechtenstein.

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