SHANGHAI, October 6 -- "Organization of the Special Olympics in Shanghai was superb," United Nations official Adolf Ogi said yesterday.

The Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General on Sport for Development and Peace arrived in the city on Tuesday to attend the opening ceremony.

"This is the best opening ceremony I've seen," Ogi said in an exclusive interview with Shanghai Daily.

"I have been to several previous Special Olympics and have seen a lot of opening ceremonies but yours beat all the others. It was really great and I think only the Chinese could do it.

"The show is very important for the intellectually disabled athletes and can give them a strong feeling of equality in our society."

Ogi, a former president of Switzerland, welcomed Swiss athletes and coaches at a reception on Wednesday. Sixty-three Swiss athletes are taking part in the 2007 Games.

"Before I arrived in Shanghai, I had already heard from our athletes that all the facilities such as hotels, transport, infrastructure and food were perfect," he said, adding that he likes Chinese food such as dumplings.

Born in 1942 in Kandersteg, near Bern, Ogi followed a course of business studies in his country and then in England. He joined the Swiss Skiing Federation and became director from 1971 to 1981. From 1993 to 2000, Ogi was president of Switzerland. He took up his present post in February 2001.

"Sport, with its joys and triumphs, its pains and defeats, its emotions and challenges, is an unrivalled medium for the promotion of education, health, development and peace," Ogi said. "Sport helps us demonstrate that there is more that unites than divides us."