The additional presence of Vonn's boyfriend Tiger Woods - the multiple golf Majors winner has promised to be there as a spectator, despite losing a tooth to a rogue television camera while watching the record-making 63rd win in Cortina d'Ampezzo on January 19 - is a pretty decent draw as well for the world's media.

"It's always good to have some publicity," Kasper told insidethegames with a chuckle. "It will raise a lot of interest, particularly with the World Championships being held in the United States. I think it's good for the Vail Organising Committee.

"What Vonn has done is more than surprising. It is marvellous that she has come back in this way - it is more than was expected. She is one of the best PR agents for the Federation!

"Of course I see all her races - if not live, then on TV. She is an outstanding skier who has a very extreme technique. She takes an enormous risk in every race so it isn't a surprise that she is leading in the World Cup.

"Can she win at the World Championships? That is a different thing, but we will wait and see.
"She is not the only one to risk in this way. US athletes – not just in skiing, but all sports – have a certain mentality when it comes to big events. Typically, they have a certain spirit of racing."


Tiger Woods in support of his girlfriend Lindsey Vonn at Val d'Isere in 2013. He has promised to watch her racing at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships which start in Vail/Beaver Creek, Colorado tomorrow - which may just be of interest to passing media ©Getty Images

Questions have been raised in the last year over whether some winter sport is getting too dangerous.

The much-publicised crashes that took place before and during Sochi 2014 - which saw Russia's freestyle skier Maria Komissarova break vertebrae in her back while training at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, and also drew criticism from competitors about the half-pipe facility after a number of heavy falls and injuries - produce a measured response from Kasper.

"Of course we have concerns," he said. "Safety is always a major concern for us.  But we are a risky sport, there is no doubt,

"One problem is that at the Winter Olympics many athletes risk too much - because it is the Games. For the World Cup, maybe, they take it more easily.

"But we didn't have so many accidents in Sochi. The Russian girl was seriously hurt, although that was in training before the Games. Unfortunately an element of risk is always there in our sport.

"This is a sport that is outside, close to nature, taking place at high speed. So there will always be risk."

While the Vonn Effect is a piece of great timing, Kasper - who has been FIS President since 1998 - is particularly pleased also with an inherent advantage of the Vail and Beaver Creek site, which last held these Championships in 1999 (Vail having hosted them on its own in 1989).

"The Vail and Beaver Creek site is an excellent one for the World Championships," he said.

"Due to the time differences, we have really the best possible TV times in Europe, where the majority of the spectators or viewers are. The finals will be around 6-7pm, prime time in Europe. That is very good for us."

Meanwhile, this influential International Olympic Committee (IOC) member, who last year became President of the Association of International Olympic Winter Sports Federations (AIOWF) has been gauging other ambitions for hosting elite skiing events a lot nearer to the East Coast of the United States and Canada.

They are aspirations which he believes have been strengthened by the new bidding procedures approved at the IOC's recent Agenda 2020 Congress in Monaco, which actively encouraged the sharing of events between cities in different countries.

"I have been talking to people in Quebec about the possibility of holding the Games there," Kasper said.

"Québec could do the Winter Games. They don't have the good number of downhill skiing slopes, but they could do it with Lake Placid.

"The possibility to go outside a city to hold other events has always existed in the winter Games.

"In Québec there is great national pride.

"They were probably afraid before to use that possibility of sharing because they felt they would have no chance with the IOC.

"But after these changes to the summer Games spoken about in the Agenda 2020 discussions, maybe they think, 'Okay, we might have a chance of winning too now.'"

Gian-Franco Kasper, the International Ski Federation President and International Olympic Committee member, pictured at the Sochi Winter Olympics last year ©Getty Images

Québec may need to be patient now that history has effectively repeated itself with the recent announcement that Boston will seek to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to the United States.

However, the fact that Québec would be a joint Canadian/US bid might well put it into a different category than a sole US bid.

Twelve years ago the province of Québec and New York State agreed to work on a joint bid for the Winter Olympics, with plans being laid to use venues around Montreal and Lake Placid, which are about 140 miles apart.

But the idea was put on hold following New York City's nomination as a bidder for the 2012 summer Games.

More recently Québec City has contemplated bidding for the Winter Games, and while its Mayor, Regis Labeaume, ruled out trying for the 2022 winter Olympics, he added that 2026 "could be a good target".

The then IOC President Jacques Rogge said he believed the 2026 Winter Games would be a realistic option for the city, which has had a problem finding a mountain suitable for the downhill event. The planned location Le Massif - about 40 miles north-east of Québec city - was not approved.

New possibilities are around, however. As Kasper himself insists: "What has changed is the thinking."

The FIS President, who turned 71 on January 24, has already felt the positive effects of one of the recommendations approved in the Olympic Agenda 2020 discussions, namely the option to offer IOC members approaching the age limit of 70 the possibility of a "one-time extension" of their term of office, for a maximum of four years."

Having been set to retire from the IOC at midnight on December 31, Kasper found his position extended until the end of his term as FIS President in June 2018.

In announcing the decision, the IOC President Thomas Bach said it was important for the IOC to retain Kasper's "great experience and knowledge, not only in winter sports but the Olympic Movement as a whole."

Kasper, who became an IOC member in 2000 and a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency three years later, responded: "I thank the IOC President and the IOC membership for their trust and hope that I can be useful in the implementation of the decisions that have been taken with regards to Olympic Agenda 2020, not only in winter sports but for the entire Olympic Movement as such."

As a former journalist - he was once editor of the St Moritz Courier - Kasper is not averse to making waves in the media.

Speaking in October before this season's World Cup alpine skiing got underway at Soelden, Kasper told Reuters that FIFA had only themselves to blame for the problem of when Qatar's staging of the 2022 World Cup finals should take place.

"FIFA is trying to find a way out of a situation they created themselves," he told Reuters. "They could have thought about the weather in Qatar before but if they want to move into the winter, I think it would be possible to have it in November or December.

"We could live with that. But if they want to move to January and February and overlap with the Winter Games or, like one FIFA representative said, just eliminate those Winter Games that have no interest, then of course I'm heavily opposed to it."

Kasper will have been satisfied to hear the recent statement on the potential timing of the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar from the Asian Football Confederation President, which appears to confirm it will not clash with that year's winter Games.

Sheikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa - who heads the FIFA Task Force on finding dates for competitions - claimed the best months for the tournament to take part are November and December.

"The period best suited for hosting the 2022 World Cup in Qatar will be in November and December because for sure it needs to be played in the winter," he said.

Austria's Annemarie Moser-Proll, whose record of 62 World Cup wins was beaten this year by Lindsey Vonn, pictured in 1979 on the downhill course at New York State's Lake Placid - which might figure in a joint bid with Québec ©Getty Images

A year ago, on the eve of the Sochi Winter Games, Kasper made the controversial comment that a third of the record $51 billion (£26 billion/€32 billion) budget had disappeared in bribes during the seven years of preparation.

He also claimed contracts were given to a "construction mafia" of businessmen closely linked to the Kremlin and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"The contracts were given to people who already had a foot in the door," Kasper said in an interview broadcast by the Rundschau news magazine.

"We know it."

Kasper, however, admitted the figure he quoted was "what everybody says in Russia" and was not based on inside knowledge or evidence.

Sochi is also in the firing line when the President considers the reluctance of the public in Switzerland, Germany and Norway to bid for the 2022 winter Games, which are being contested now by Beijing and Almaty.

"It's the consequence of Sochi and the enormous financial cost they had there. One talks of $51 billion, which is just crazy," he has remarked.

"We have to ask ourselves what we want between 'nice to have' and 'must have', and if we stick to the 'must have', then the problem is more or less solved."

He adds: "We should adapt the Games to the organisers, and not the organisers to the ideas of the International Olympic Committee."

The insidethegames magazine at the 2014 SportAccord Convention asked Presidents of all the federations within the Olympics to reflect upon the previous 30 years of changes within the Movement.

Kasper spoke of the "dramatic evolution" which had taken place within winter sports.

Asked to look ahead to the next 30 years, he responded:

"I really hope the evolution will continue, not only in freestyle and snowboarding. In principle the FIS is a small sports federation. We preside over sports for only four months of the year and one month in the southern hemisphere.

"But we have over 7000 international competitions on our calendar and that makes us quite an important federation.  330 of these are World Cups which are also televised. That is a big thing."

But note the word "evolution." And note the lack of the word "revolution." Kasper is anxious to maintain the traditions of the sport he loves – and is set against the kind of notion proposed by fellow sports administrators such as Brian Cookson, President of the International Cycling Union (UCI), who floated the idea of having events in the winter Games.

The Opening Ceremony of Sochi 2014, which Gian Franco Kasper accuses of putting off potential bidders for future Games because of its huge cost, estimated overall at $51 billion ©Getty Images