ISMF meeting in Pelvoux, planning races for the upcoming season

The working sessions in Pelvoux took place after the official presentation held by the Chairman and his staff, alternating presentations about the strategies to come and talks with the delegations.
For the four years he is to spend in office, Armando Mariotta, will be supported by the General Secretary, Roberto Cavallo and the head of the secretariat, Ludovica Casolla.

With regard to purely competitive issues, the Pole Magda Zbrzeska will be coordinator between the Federation and the races. The newly introduced Sport Manager position will mainly deal with all the elements being comprised in the competition part, from the race schedule to rule supervision, from rankings to guidelines for event logistics, follow-up on the development of ski mountaineering in the nations where it is still in the start-up phase and the policies on women and the youth.
The marketing and communication office, too, changed its structure; the Head of the “Marketing Deparment” is the Norwegian Jon Dammann, aided by the Austrian Karl Posch, who is specifically appointed for sponsor research and coordination.

In his presentation, Posch showcased the “World Cup” model for the 2012/2013 season, whereby the World is to be divided into five different areas of interest. During the season that is about to start, all the new communication concepts are to be tested. The anti-doping and judge activities shall be trusted to Pierre Dollo and Carlo Ferrari, who went to a great length to explain the anti-doping procedural protocol and the changes in the rules in detail.
«The work we have done in the very first period - said Armando Mariotta – was entirely aimed at giving a new balance to the Federation according to the new guidelines. The work involved was massive, and included the displacement of the entire secretariat from Barcelona to Cuneo. At the beginning, right after our inauguration, we devoted our work entirely to set up the team that will be operative over the coming years. Besides selecting new professional profiles, such as the Sport Manager and the Company Pool Manager, who will be supported by technical consultants, we also expanded the marketing and communication department. In the coming weeks the Internet website will be consistently restyled to become a state-of-the-art and functional tool to communicate anything that happens within the Federation. Moreover, the enrolments in all World Cup races will be managed through the Federation’s web page, in order to simplify and quicken the race enrolment processes. We also worked to intensify and consolidate our relations with the international Sport Accord association and more particularly with the IOC with which we are having closer and closer talks in order to be recognised as an Olympic Federation, a mandatory step to be included in the mid-term Olympic planning».