The 71-year-old, who is also a member of the IOC's ruling Executive Board, was on holiday in the moutains when he began to feel unwell and contacted a doctor. 

He had surgery at Oslo's Ullevaal Hospital but his secretary Unni Johnsen said he is recovering well and hopes to be released at the weekend.

"Fortunately he got help in time," Johnsen, told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK).

"He has never had a heart attack before."

But Heiberg, the organiser of the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer and former chief executive of industrial firm Aker and Den Norske Bank, has had to cancel plans to watch the women's ski jump event at the Nordic Ski World Championships in Oslo tomorrow.

The IOC is considering whether to include the event at the 2014 Olympics.

Now Heiberg will not be there, after earlier telling NRK that "the future for women's ski jumping at the Olympics in 2014" would likely be decided at the event.

"He is fine and we have spoken to him," a spokesman for the IOC told insidethegames.