Santa Caterina picks up Bormio’s December downhill

Finish area in Santa Caterina during the 2005 World Championships. GEPA

During Friday’s fall meeting of the Sub-Committee for Alpine World Cup, newly-elected chairman Niklas Carlsson opened the meeting for the first time in his role and shared some initial thoughts regarding the future of the sport and its World Cup events.

“It is my goal to work in the interest of our sport in the global prospective and sometimes this can be a big challenge, but my wish is for this Sub-Committee to achieve constructive discussions about the future,” said Carlsson. “Skiing has a long history and some great traditions, which have guided our structure, but I believe that it’s time to look into defining a more analytical way of moving our sport forward.

“I believe we must find ways to improve the presence of our sport in all countries, and I see lot of possibilities for that if we work with passion and commitment. We have a chance to be relevant to younger generation and to get them involved in our sport. Also, to best develop the World Cup we will need to work on finding solutions on how to best create commercial value while remembering that we are a sports organization and that sport should always remain our priority,” Carlsson said in his opening speech.

Carlsson’s report was followed by updates from the chief race directors, Atle Skaardal and Markus Waldner, and FIS marketing manager Marcel Looze.

Both Skaardal and Waldner expressed their satisfaction with the summer inspections, and their excitement to start the season in Soelden (AUT) in just a few weeks.

While there were no updates to the ladies’ calendars for the upcoming season, on the men’s side Waldner announced at the meeting that a suitable solution had not been found for the downhill in Bormio (ITA), where the lift operations company was requesting a race date outside of the holiday week.

For this year, the race will be held in nearby Santa Caterina (ITA), which hosted the ladies’ events of the 2005 World Ski Championships and is located just kilometers from Bormio. An inspection of the hill will take place this Monday to allow enough time to plan for the downhill, which will take place this year one day earlier than usual on Dec. 28. Waldner is confident that Santa Caterina will be able to deliver a very good event especially considering that the team behind it is the same one that has delivered the successful races in Bormio over past years.

After the long-term calendars were presented, the meeting was adjourned. The final meeting in Zurich concluded yesterday after the Alpine Committee met in the morning.