Alpine Skiingthe interview
Swiss-Ski number 1 spoke to the "Blick": "We must hope for a vaccine and, if necessary, also ski in the spring".
Monday 11 May 2020 4 minutes reading time
Urs Lehmann is one of the two candidates for the FIS presidency, to inherit the chair that will be left vacant by Gianfranco Kasper. As known, the opponent of the descent champion in Morioka 1993 will be the Swedish millionaire Johan Eliasch, CEO of Head, for a race that cannot be staged as scheduled in the spring congress, but will only see a vote on next autumn.
Interviewed by the "Blick", the former Swiss sprinter, head of the Swiss federsci since 2008, he has expressed himself on various topics starting from current events and a 2020/21 World Cup that presents a thousand unknowns. “Will we have races without spectators? It is difficult to evaluate and imagine, but we have to think about different scenarios. If there are no alternatives, the races without audiences will be better than nothing, on the other hand, already in Lake Louise there is usually a race in front of 300 people ".
For Lehmann, “the World Cup is fundamental for the various federations, so a negative scenario would put the whole system in crisis. The cancellation of the Cortina World Championships or the Nordic Ski World Championships in Oberstdorf would also be a disaster, but we must wait for developments and hope that there will soon be a vaccine. You will need creativity, thinking for example on the possibility of competing only in certain areas or continents and prolonging the season until late spring ".
Until possible extremes: “We are talking about distant hypotheses, but if international flights and competitions are not allowed, then we will have to try to move only on national competitions - explains Lehmann - A descent on the Lauberhorn with only Swiss athletes could also be a good event , this is to say that anything will be better than nothing. "
On the race to number 1 of the international federation, Urs Lehmann says he is confident: “I have received many positive feedbacks, including from representatives of countries such as Algeria or Puerto Rico. The plan is that the FIS will hold the congress in Zurich in early October, but even in this case there may be alternatives, with the possibility of voting during a session in digital version ".
In general, the Swiss executive believes that the ski of the future “will have to adapt to the situation and fans will get used to something different, as in the case of après-ski. The hope is that at least you can drink a beer in company while keeping the necessary distance from other people ".
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