Massive problems overshadow the start of the season in Sölden.
Photo: imago/Daniel Goetzhaber
At first, Alexander Schmid didn’t know what to make of it. From his ride on Sunday in the second round of the giant slalom in Sölden. The Allgäu native had always had a hard time with the Alpine World Cup start in recent years. So it took a while on Sunday before Schmid knew that the season was going to get off to a good start. Eighth place was the result of the victory of the Swiss Marco Odermatt, he had never landed so far ahead on the Rettenbachferner.
The days of Sölden ended with great sport, after they had been marked by discussions about the sense and nonsense of ski races in October before the men’s giant slalom, by cancellations and a dispute that spreads more and more and does not reflect well on the Alpine World Cup and the internal climate in the International Ski Association Fis. First, the rain and snowfall during the night prevented the women’s giant slalom from being held, a few hours later the two men’s downhill runs in Zermatt/Cervina planned for the coming weekend had to be canceled due to insufficient snow.
Fis race director Markus Waldner positioned himself clearly. “Nature stopped the machine,” said the South Tyrolean at the team captains’ meeting on Saturday evening. “But that wasn’t just bad luck, mistakes were made in the program.” When a departure was scheduled for the end of October, he meant by that. Because it is not uncommon for the temperatures at this time to be too high to make snow. “We must respect nature,” he said.
The applause of most nations might have been certain for him, that of Fis President Johan Eliasch probably not. Because the newly designed shot ride, the first on a glacier and the first across borders, is a prestige project by Eliasch. So the race director turned against his boss, who the day before had defended the descent and even more so the early date criticized by many athletes and coaches. The gap in the calendar between the start in Sölden and the parallel races in Lech in mid-November, which were only included in the program last year, had to be closed, he said at the Forum Alpinum on Friday.
Now you have to know that this was a FIS event, with a moderator appointed and financed by the World Ski Federation. In the conversation with Eliasch, he had touched on all the hotly discussed topics, but of course there were no critical questions about the well-formulated answers in the style of a PR consultant.
Discrepancies between sustainability, which Eliasch always considered important, and a World Cup calendar with more and more races and thus more trips, the President later admitted in an individual interview. “You have to find the right balance,” he said. But the main focus at the moment is on “exhibiting ourselves in as many markets as possible” in one season.
In the auditorium of the forum, which is primarily organized for the media, many sports directors were exceptionally seated to find out what the Fis President was planning. Communication with Elijah, who is considered unapproachable, is not supposed to be the best. You don’t just hear that from those associations that are currently at loggerheads with him. Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Croatia have appealed against the president’s re-election this summer and are still awaiting the Cas hearing, now scheduled for December 5.
Ski associations, which regularly organize World Cup races themselves, also complain that Eliasch occasionally wants to enforce decisions in a hurry. The Fis President leaves no doubt that the marketing of television rights must be centralized. “Improved media rights management brings more money to the Fis, and so we can ensure higher prize money,” he argued. Most associations could come to terms with this, but not immediately, because there are still ongoing contracts from the World Cup organizers that have to be fulfilled. The World Cup is facing turbulent times.
