Alpine Skiing
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Last week the FIS technical committees met in Zurich during the autumn meeting of the international federation to conclude preparations for the coming winter and discuss the future of the Alpine World Cup. Besides the highlight of the season, the Ã…re Swedish snow world championships, the reduction of the starting field and the modification of the rules of the parallels were the most important themes.
Wednesday 3 October 2018 4 minutes reading time
The week of the meeting began with both working groups of women's and men's coaches. Together with the leaders of every nation and with most of the organizers of the World Cup, the FIS staff has dealt with the operational aspects of the coming seasons: from travel plans, to arrival and departure dates, to free skiing on slopes, to the specifications of the equipment, to the trackers, to the collection of live data and to the television graphics, the family of the World Cup organized itself to spend a quiet winter. At the World Cup meeting, held on Friday, September 28th, the discussions were more strategic and tried to offer the best possible framework for the growth of the World Cup. Although the television ratings presented are not alarming, it has been agreed that new measures must be taken to improve the TV product of the World Cup.
An improvement is based on the reduction of the starting field. In the last spring meetings the great nations took a step in that direction and agreed to cut their quota to have a maximum of seven athletes per nation. Everyone must adhere to the renewal for the benefit of this sport and further steps must be taken to ensure that the World Cup remains the maximum Alpine skiing circuit. The goal is to better show the big stars of our sport on TV. An unofficial proposal was presented by the chairman of the Alpine Ski World Cup committee Niklas Carlsson, who would progressively reduce the quota to the 30 leading nations. No final decision was taken, but all committee members were invited to discuss this topic in the winter and present concrete proposals at the spring meetings in Dubrovnik.
The other main topic of this autumn meeting was the modification of the rules of the parallels. In spring the FIS Council agreed to include the individual parallel as a World Championship specialty starting from Cortina 2021. Therefore, it has become urgent to equate the different formats and establish the parallel as a specialty with a cup in its own right. In this sense, a working group was created to analyze the different options and make a proposal for equality that could be implemented at all levels of FIS competitions in the winter of 2019-2020. With these meetings, another great World Cup season has been set. In less than 30 days the best athletes and the world's best giant athletes will face Sölden for the classic opening of the season, which will then lead to the Åre World Cup and the Soldeu World Cup finals, Andorra, in the next March.
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