Harbin tests its Olympic mettle with Winter Universiade

By Nick Mulvenney

HARBIN, China (Reuters) - China laid the foundations for a possible Winter Olympics bid Wednesday when the 24th World Winter University Games opened with a typically lavish ceremony.

The governor of northeastern Heilongjiang province, of which host city Harbin is the capital, said last year that a successful Universiade would be the precursor to a bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Everywhere in this "Ice City" of 10 million there is the feeling that the next 10 days will be a test for bigger things to come.

The venues and facilities where the 2,000 athletes will compete in 12 sports have, organizers say, been constructed to world championship and Olympic standards as part of a $370 million investment in the biennial event.

Even International University Sports Federation (FISU) president George Killian -- an ex-International Olympic Committee member -- got in on the act, saying at the opening news conference that he thought Harbin would be a great Winter Olympic host.

"George Killian thinks Harbin is qualified to host the 2018 Winter Olympics and Harbin is very much keen to have such an opportunity," Du Jiahao, deputy governor of the province, replied.

Harbin failed in a bid to host the 2010 Olympics but the success of the Beijing Olympics was a huge boost of confidence for China and it still resonates some six months later.

Wednesday, the minus 27 degree Celsius temperatures outside the Harbin exhibition center made for a very different environment to a humid Beijing August, but the ambitious ceremony was no less enthusiastically received by the 6,000-strong crowd.

The student skaters, biathletes and ski-jumpers parading into the arena under the flags of the 45 competing nations and an intricate cauldron lighting -- which involved a curling stone -- were just the start of a two-hour cultural extravaganza.

(Editing by Sonia Oxley)