Sports show expert Felix Neureuther is busy with the construction work on the glacier in Sölden. In the BR24 podcast “Pizza & Fries” he talks about his impressions.
The pictures went around the world: Excavators are standing where the alpine ski racers will throw themselves down the slope in a few weeks, and prepare the slope. The problem: The construction site is located directly on Sölden’s Rettenbach glacier, where the ice has been receding for years and is in danger of disappearing completely in the medium term. According to Greenpeace, parts of the ice were removed during the construction work.
For “Pizza & Fries” host Felix Neureuther, these images are “a catastrophe for skiing.” In a conversation with the former Austrian ski racer Philipp Schörghofer, he said: “I was speechless because of the pictures. They are very disturbing and simply no longer up to date.”
Schörghofer: Construction work on the slope “actually a good idea”
The responsible piste operators see the whole thing differently: Greenpeace is “only maliciously” engaging in an “abuse of the facts,” replied Jakob Falkner, managing director of the Sölden mountain railways. Schörghofer understands the argument from Sölden: “They are planning the glacier construction workers so that they need less artificial snow to restore the racing slope. That’s actually a good idea.”
Nevertheless, the two-time team world champion, who Neureuther knows well from their time together in the ski circus, says: “We’ve been on the glacier together for 25-30 years and I’ve seen an excavator every year, so it’s not that far-fetched that there are excavators standing around. Of course the picture on the World Cup slope, where they are blowing away parts and digging them away, is really bad.”
Schörghofer: World Cup calendar “is never about any sense of purpose”
For the two former athletes, the early start of the World Cup in Sölden is no longer appropriate in times of climate change: “Why is the race so early? It’s just about boosting ski tourism,” says Schörghofer and explains: “Of course you can do that later, then it snows and everything is white and everything is great. But unfortunately it’s not like that. At the end of the day, the World Cup calendar is made the way the organizers want it to be in order to advertise a ski area. And This is never about any (sustainable) meaning.”
Neureuther fears that protests by climate activists could now affect the start of the World Cup: “People will probably stick to the streets at the start of the World Cup in Sölden, Greenpeace will start an action,” says Neureuther and hopes that the World Ski Association will change its mind FIS: “At some point you’ll run out of arguments. Why don’t you check that the start of the World Cup should be postponed? I hope that there will now be a rethink when it comes to the calendar.”
The previous episodes from the first season of Pizza & Fries are available in the ARD audio library.
