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Saturday 29 May 1999 was a splendid day in the annals of the FAI. To celebrate our official arrival in Lausanne, we gave a party on the terrace of the Olympic Museum, overlooking Lake Geneva and the Savoy Alps beyond, and treated our guests - thanks to the help of our friends in the Aero Club of Switzerland - to a display of air sports. Throughout the day, the gardens of the Museum were given over to a static dislay of air sports - aeromodels, balloons, hang gliders - even a Swiss-manufactured microlight (they can be built here even if they are banned from flying by a misguided regulatory authority.) Then, after speeches and presentations of gifts from FAI President Eilif Ness, Lausanne Mayor Jean Jacques Schilt, and International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch, the airborne fun began with fly-pasts by Tiger Moth and Stemme S10 motor glider, precision parachuting into the garden of the Museum, aerobatics in a CAP 231, radio controlled mini-Montgolfières and a bravado demonstration of paragliding, with the paraglider towed to altitude behind a speedboat on the lake, and then landing back in the boat. The crowd loved it, especially the children, and FAI received much positive coverage in the local media as a result. This day followed closely on the heels of the signing of a contract with Trans World International for the distribution of TV programmes on this year's FAI World Championships in various disciplines. In the words of the TWI press release: "We are delighted to be forging this new partnership with the FAI just at a time when new channels, as well as established ones, are looking at the opportunities provided by exciting sports new to television", says Bill Sinrich, Managing Director of TWI, Europe, Africa & the Middle East. "With the rapid development of micro camera technology, it is the perfect opportunity to transport viewers into a whole new sports experience. We are genuinely excited by the possibilities and confident about the interest the series will create". "Michel Masquelier, the Sales Executive responsible for the series, believes the exciting coverage with minicams on competitors and equipment as well as inside cockpits showing the G-force effects on pilots' faces, will stimulate a whole new awareness of air sports." They say that, and they should know. TWI is the world's leading Sport TV distribution company. There have been many false dawns, but the world of air sport appears to be on the verge of a TV breakthrough. In our new home in Lausanne, frequently visited by the top media moguls and deal-brokers, we are now well positioned to take FAI into the new century as a major force in sports TV, alongside our traditional role as a rule-making and ratifying authority.
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