FIS race director expects ‘complicated’ season

FIS Race Director Markus Waldner expects the upcoming World Cup and Olympic season to be complicated. With even more events than last season, including the Olympics in China, travel for athletes and team personnel will continue to be a significant challenge.

“It’s not going to be a normal winter again. You can see everywhere that the numbers are rising again, so there will be infections. We have to live with that. I think it will be even more complicated than last winter,” Waldner recently told Kurier.

“There can be no compulsory vaccination for athletes, that would be an encroachment on human rights,” he went on to say. Some countries will require proof of vaccination to enter, which may pose complications for athletes and personnel who choose to not get vaccinated, Waldner said.

To pull off such a successful season last year, everyone had to take COVID tests frequently. Waldner says that even though the process was annoying, everyone’s participation in it allowed them to pull off so many races.

While the vaccine will not be mandated by FIS, precautions will be taken to protect people and to ensure races can be run. This includes limiting the number of spectators at races.

“This year we are again planning a limited number of visitors for most of the events. Of course it won’t be 40,000 in Kitzbühel as it used to be, but I can imagine up to 10,000 visitors with all the measures,” Waldner said.