The President of the World Ski Federation wants to change the sport of skiing far and wide. A plan: to adapt skiing to Formula 1. Athletes would then ride for teams from sporting goods manufacturers. BR expert Felix Neureuther rejects these innovations.
The new president of the Ski World Association, Johan Eliasch, wants to take alpine skiing and especially marketing to a new level. The Swede’s model is Formula 1, explains Neureuther, who rejects such plans.
“Skiing is at home in the Alps, not in China or in Saudi Arabia,” Neureuther explains in Focus on Sport, how critically he observes the current development. For him there is no question that the sport has to adapt to “the signs of the times”. But not every new plan is a good plan.
Will skiing become Formula 1?
Eliasch’s latest idea: The athletes should no longer drive for their country, but for teams from sporting goods manufacturers, similar to Formula 1 or cycling. The Swede owns one of the largest sporting goods brands in the world (Head), which is already present in skiing.
The former ski racer Marcel Hirscher, also active in the sporting goods manufacturing business after his career, wants innovations and is not averse to the President’s Formula 1 idea: “We would like to fundamentally change skiing, improve it, in order to give skiing importance again ‘that he deserved’.
Felix Neureuther welcomes adjustments, but rejects mind games with motorsport: “Skiing has nothing to do with Formula 1,” said the former ski racer in Focus Sport.
Early start of the season “bad planning from the start”
Another idea of the new President to start the World Cup season in October this year failed miserably. One race cancellation follows the next in alpine skiing these days, because – unsurprisingly – there is no snow at this early time of the year. It was only on Sunday that the world association FIS had to announce that this Parallel races in Lech/Zürs cannot be driven due to insufficient snow.
The premiere descent on the Matterhorn, which should have taken place last weekend, also had to be cancelled. A total of seven of the first eight World Cup races are cancelled. For Neureuther, the early start to the season was “misplanned from the start”.
Neureuther: Don’t always have to go faster, higher, further
Felix Neureuther also spoke out on BR television against an extension of the racing calendar. “It doesn’t always have to be faster, higher, further,” says the BR winter sports expert. Instead, he advocates “making better” existing races. The sport should rather ask itself the question “how do we manage to bring the athletes closer to the spectators”.
Source: Blickpunkt Sport 06.11.2022 – 9:45 p.m
