The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said that potential Youth Olympic Games bid cities should not be put off by trying to match the scale of Nanjing 2014.

Gilbert Felli, the IOC's Olympic Games Executive Director, stressed that each edition of the Games should have its own character during a wide-ranging interview with members of the IOC Young Reporters Program.

The Swiss emphasised the importance of taking the Games to different parts of the world.

Nanjing local young reporter He Haiyang of China asked Felli about the standard set by Chinese cities such as Beijing, which hosted the 2008 Olympic Games, and Nanjing.

The youngster asked whether the operational scale of Nanjing 2014 would set a benchmark for future Youth Olympic Games.

"Life is made of competition," Felli said. "You want to do better for yourself, sometimes you want to do better than others, and if you go into a sporting competition you want to win, so it's always good for me when a city wants to achieve something fantastic.

"But we don't ask the city to set a new benchmark. We ask the city to organise the Olympic Games according to the standard fixed by the IOC.

"There's a risk now that everybody wants to be bigger. Suddenly a lot of people are going to say, 'We can't afford to be bigger. We could organise the Games, but the IOC's asking us to be more and more and more and then it's impossible', and that's a big issue for us today.

"To be frank, it's not easy to be here in Nanjing, because we are afraid that the standard that you fix here will make other cities afraid to bid, because they'll never be able to do what Nanjing has done.

"And that's not the purpose of the IOC. Our purpose is to go to every part of the world and not every part of the world can afford what the Chinese are doing.

"So yes, we're very happy with Nanjing but we don't want to say, 'This is what you have to do for the Youth Olympic Games.'"

Young reporter Ricardo Chambers of Jamaica asked Felli whether the IOC had drifted from its mandate to bring the Olympic Games, via the Youth Olympic Games, to places other than large cities and countries.

"No, we don't want to depart from that, but we cannot refuse cities the right to bid," said Felli. "So we have to give a chance to cities and we're saying that you don't have to build facilities.

"A good example is the difference between the summer and winter Youth Olympic Games so far. I'd say we've achieved our goals with Innsbruck and with Lillehammer.

"With Lillehammer, it will be simple, with existing venues, and you'll see that you can organise a Youth Olympic Games with simple venues and that the IOC is not asking that a city build so many seats. We're asking for something very, very small.

"But again, if a city like Nanjing is coming to bid we're not going to say, 'No, you can't bid,' so that's why it's important that we all understand that.

"And our new president [Thomas BACH] has been clear on that. There are different types of Games for different places." Endit

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