The planned Russia World Cup, fewer starts in Germany, including the elimination of the traditional Kandahar downhill in Garmisch, as well as a lot of travel and possible collisions with the soccer World Cup raise a few questions.
Russian locations in draft calendars
The World Ski Association around the new President Johan Eliasch is apparently assuming that the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine will soon come to an end and that the Russians will quickly return to the international community – despite the alleged massacre of the Ukrainian civilian population that has recently become public. There is no other explanation for the fact that places from Russia and Belarus are still noted in the draft calendars. So ski jumpers and ski jumpers should on 19./20. November and on 3./4. December in Nizhny Tagil to celebrate the start of winter.
The place from the middle of the Urals is in FIScalendar as well as snowboard cross competitions in Krasnoyarsk, a ski cross world cup in Russia sunny valley, competitions of snowboard racers in Moscow and an aerials world cup in Minsk-Raubichi, a suburb of the capital of Belarus. All competitions are marked with the ambiguous annotation “under observation of the situation in Russia”.
No men’s Kandahar descent
On the other hand, the traditional Kandahar downhill for men in Garmisch-Partenkirchen is to be cancelled. Instead of actually for the 28./29. January 2023 planned men’s Garmisch weekend with downhill and giant slalom, a so-called “night event” is now to take place on January 4, 2023 – a bitter disappointment for the World Cup location, which is also applying for the Alpine Ski World Championships 2027.
Ski Jumping: Fewer World Cups in Germany
The German Ski Jumping World Cup organizers should also be dissatisfied. Instead of eleven competitions in the past season, only seven men’s competitions are planned for the coming winter.
In addition to the Four Hills locations in Oberstdorf and Garmisch, Titisee-Neustadt with a new date (mid-December 2022) and Willingen (beginning of February 2023) are still on the calendar. Klingenthal and ski flying in Oberstdorf are missing. For the women, the calendar was shortened from seven to five competitions in Germany.
climate positive? – Alpine men twice overseas
The new World Cup plans also fuel further doubts about the new “climate positive” image of the world association. The initiative of the controversial FIS-President Eliasch had already been rated as “dubious” by environmentalists after her presentation. The new alpine calendar continues to scratch the green image with two planned men’s World Cup trips to the USA and Canada.
At the end of November/beginning of December it is scheduled to go to Lake Louise (Canada) and Beaver Creek (USA), then at the end of February/beginning of March there are two weekends in Palissade Tahoe and Aspen (both USA) planned – certainly not a role model for reducing the CO2 footprint.
The snowboarders who travel between China, Canada and the United States for their Big Air events between mid-December and mid-February also have wild travel plans USAAustria and finally Canada orbit the world more than once.
Collision with World Cup?
The rather weak adjustment of the calendar to the schedule of the soccer World Cup, which takes place in November and December in the desert state of Qatar, could still cause discussions within the world association. Finally threatens the FIS-Sports resulting in a lower TV presence.
For German alpine and soccer fans, there could be a conflict of dates on November 27th. Then it comes from 8 p.m CET for the football prestige duel Spain versus Germany. On the same day, overseas, the alpine women are scheduled to compete in a slalom (in Killington) and the men in a super-G (in Lake Louise).
Four Hills for Ski jumpers – NoKo women’s calendar is growing
But there are also winners of the calendar plans – or rather winners. The ski jumpers are to have their own Four Hills Tournament – which is called the New Year’s Tournament and is to take place between December 28th and January 1st in Austria and Slovenia.
The calendar for the Nordic Combined women is set to grow from ten competitions last winter to 22 World Cups next winter. Also taking part in February 2023 in Schonach in the Black Forest.