Ski Racing Roundup: Zurich withdraws, Bloom testifies, Baacke retires, Risler files

Ski Racing Roundup: Zurich withdraws, Bloom testifies, Baacke retires, Risler files{mosimage}This winter, skiracing.com will be home to weekly news roundups, leading you to regional and international developments you may have missed. Here is a preview of the new format, which will appear regularly following our website re-launch on October 21. If you have suggestions, please let us know. We look forward to receiving your comments at webeditor@insideinc.com.

Zurich, Switzerland, passes on chance to bid for 2014 Winter Olympics

The city of Zurich has withdrawn its planned bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics. A good English-language analysis of the decision is available at the website of the Zurich’s daily newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung (click here).

The surprising decision, announced on September 14, seems to be a financial one. Zurich may be one of the world’s banking centers, but investors there were slow to step up. The high cost of the Athens Games has probably scared a lot of potential hosts (the Athens security budget alone was $1.5 billion dollars).

A good summary of the history of the Zurich 2014 plans is available at SwissInfo (click here). The six-month-old story was written when the stars seemed to be aligned for Zurich.

Surprisingly, the Swiss haven’t hosted the winter games since St. Moritz hosted them back in 1948. While Switzerland is home to the International Olympic Committee, the country has seen three Winter Olympic bids fail since 1969.

And if you’re curious about the progress of the venues for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, you can click here to visit GamesBids.com, an interesting gadfly site where fans post photos of the venues that are presently under construction.

Work has been underway this summer at Sestriere, where the 2006 ski venues are located. You can find a link to photos of that process at a July 25th story at skiracing.com .

Mr. Bloom goes to Washington, taking his NCAA fight to the next level

Just a few weeks after being told he cannot play football for the University of Colorado, Jeremy Bloom took his long eligibility battle with the NCAA before a Congressional subcommittee yesterday. The Daily Camera, of Boulder, Colorado, has posted a fascinating story by James W. Brosnan at their website (click here to read it).

“Skiing at the Winter Olympics, I’m fine,” says Bloom in the story. “Testifying before Congress, I’m a little shaky.” Brosnan’s story explores some the obscure political subplots that are have helped Bloom win a Washington audience.

Bloom is presently banned from NCAA football for accepting skiing-related endorsements. His moguls career has not suffered from the distractions. He won a World Cup in March of last year.

Marko Baacke, former Nordic combined world champion, retires at 24

Marko Baacke, the German standout in nordic combined events, retired on Tuesday. Baacke, who won a 2001 World Championship event (the sprint at Lahti, Finland), was just 24. He was reportedly in tears as he told the German media that he couldn’t regain his old form and winning mentality following a bad crash in November of 2001. That accident, which knocked him out of competition for a year, caused serious damage to his spleen and kidney.

Click here for a summary of Baacke’s career and here for a German-language story about Baacke’s announcement.

Canadian alpine skier starts online newsletter, describing life on the team

Christina Risler, a member of the Canadian alpine ski team, has developed a new website for fans at www.christinarisler.com. There she is posting the sports diary that also appears at Canada’s website as Christina Risler’s newsletter. This week’s entry has details about the dryland regimen and the team’s most recent camp in Chile.

Risler, who was born in 1983 and comes from Whistler, British Columbia, ended her season last year at the Europa Cup in Innerkrems, Austria. Her FIS profile can be accessed here.