There have been simpler times for the Ski World Cup industry representatives. Ever higher temperatures, less and less snow: Hardly any other sport is as affected by climate change as alpine ski racing. The professionals have recently had to literally defend their raison d’être. Perhaps the finger has been pointed too often at the ski scene because snow cannons and white artificial snow veils on green-brown slopes are easier to identify than, for example, the floodlight consumption of football stadiums or the insane number of kilometers flown by the Formula 1 fleet. Sometimes, however, and there is little doubt about it, the ski community makes life difficult for itself.
Under the increasingly complicated conditions and constraints, the World Ski Association Fis has designed a racing calendar for the recently started alpine season that has been less good in other years – but has two significant weaknesses in 2024/25: women and men each fly to the United States twice, in Soon we’ll be going to Killington and Beaver Creek, among other places, and everyone will get on the plane together again for the World Cup final at the end of March, then to Sun Valley in Idaho. This plan raises two questions that are currently being actively discussed among ski professionals: Why does it have to go to the USA again? And why is the final scheduled for March?
The past few years have shown that winter has shifted in Central Europe. It starts to snow later in the year than before, but skiing can be longer in the spring. Quite a few amateur winter sports enthusiasts spend the Easter holidays in ski areas in Austria, Switzerland or France. The damn good Mikaela Shiffrin, who despite all her successes seems down-to-earth, gets to the point on this topic: “The season should start later and possibly end later,” she said on the sidelines of the slalom in Gurgl, Austria (which she of course won) . From their point of view, it should be examined how the ski racers’ trips can be arranged in a more “physically and ecologically sensible” way. Like this season, she finds it “really hard on the body and mind.”
The skiers’ racing calendar will probably still be discussed for years to come, but it will never be perfect. However, the strain on athletes and nature caused by two trips to the USA could easily be avoided by scheduling all the races there in a larger time window. These or other optimization suggestions must remain permitted. For example this one: Sölden does not have the Nimbus as a mandatory starting location in October, and the races there are held at the end of November before or after the Gurgl Slaloms, Gurgl is Sölden’s neighboring town. The first World Cup would then be in Levi in the future. Then from now on it would be: Finnish to start.
#ski #season #Professionals #demand #racing #calendar
