FIS delegation inspects 2005 World Cup Finals venue in Lenzerheide, Switzerland

FIS delegation inspects 2005 World Cup Finals venue in Lenzerheide, Switzerland{mosimage}A delegation from the International Ski Federation (FIS) visited Lenzerheide, Switzerland today, officially inspecting the slope to determine its readiness for the 2005 World Cup Finals.

“Today a FIS Delegation was viewing the new pistes,” said Michel Savary, representing the Lenzerheide tourist bureau. “The new piste was recommended by the FIS. They said that the old piste was not good enough for the races and we had to build a new one.”

Lenzerheide has thus spent the summer building all-new race courses. Click here to view the photos of the construction, including aerial views and snowmaking systems.

The new race hill has been named in honor of Silvano Beltrametti, who was paralyzed in a downhill crash at Val d’Isere in December of 2001. The Lenzerheide course is named the “Silvano Beltrametti Weltcuppiste,” and Beltrametti broke ground on it, digging the first spadeful of earth in a May 28 ceremony.

The Finals, which are held annually in March, consist of four events — one in each alpine discipline — for men and women. At the end of the Finals, the World Cup is presented to the season’s top athletes. Last season, the winners were Hermann Maier of Austria and Anja Pearson of Sweden.

In addition to inspecting the site, the FIS has determined the 2004-2005 World Cup schedule, and has posted the final version on their website. Fans can download the alpine, cross-country, jumping, nordic combined, freestyle and snowboard calendars. Click here to find the calendars.

Especially noteworthy on the alpine women’s calendar is that no race is scheduled for the first weekend in January. That’s because most World Cup athletes will be instead racing the Europa Cup that week at Santa Caterina Valfurva, Italy. That Europa Cup downhill and super G, January 5 and 6, is the test event for the 2005 world championships, which will be held on the same slope just one month later.

The women’s World Cup was supposed to visit Santa Caterina last year, but were cancelled, in part because environmentalist groups were opposed to the construction of a chairlift to access the new run.

Another interesting addition to the women’s World Cup is a slalom to be held in Croatia on January 20. Alpine skiing has acheived phenomenal popularity in Croatia following the Olympic and World Cup success of the Kostelic siblings, Ivica and Janica. The race will take place just outside of the city of Zagreb (Croatia’s capital), at a ski area called Sljeme. The Croatian team’s alpine director claims that if organizers were to lift the attendance limit they’ve already established, the event could draw upwards of 100,000 fans.

Earlier this summer, at the 44th FIS Congress, in Miami, the FIS selected Val d’Isere to host the 2009 world championships.

Miami also saw the FIS definitively approve the calendar for the next alpine world championships. The races, which will be held in Bormio, Italy (the Lombardy province) will include the premiere of the World Team Championships. This latter will take place on the last day of the event, February 13th.

The new competition will be held in two heats: a slightly shortened super G and a special slalom. The nations taking part will be able to enter four athletes, two men and two women, for each race. Each athlete will be placed in a heat with competitors from the other nations and his/her team will win points based on his/her position in the group placings.

At the end, the four athletes points will be added up and will determine the overall placings for the nations, thereby deciding the medal winners.

The times for the races have also been confirmed: the speed races (downhill and super G) kick off at 11:45 a.m., and the same timetable is being kept to for the training sessions. The two runs for the special slaloms and the giant slaloms have been fixed for 9:30 a.m. and 13:00 a.m. respectively. The two runs of the Nations World Championships will start at the same times.

Click here to see a very detailed race schedule for the 2005 championships , which run from January 28 to February 13.