Frank Shatz, left, and Lake Placid Mayor Jamie Rogers stand near the sign that welcomes visitors to the Olympic Village. Lake Placid News photo/Heather Sackett

LAKE PLACID — With just two weeks left until the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, Frank Shatz and Lake Placid Mayor Jamie Rogers are sharing with Chinese officials a successful program from the 1980 Games that brought foreign athletes and local citizens together.

Shatz is hoping China will resurrect the Olympic People-for-People program he helped establish at the 1980 Games in Lake Placid. The concept is simple — an outpouring of international goodwill where local residents of the host city open their hearts and homes to foreign Olympic athletes and officials.

In 1980, portrait artist Slayton Underhill and his wife Barbara, of Wilmington, hosted a group of athletes from the People’s Republic of China and the secretary general of the Chinese Olympic Committee He Zhengliang. He Zhengliang was so impressed with the experience that he presented Shatz with three commemorative “Gold Medals of Sport,” the Chinese Olympic Commi