Minutes of the Sub-Committee Meeting for the Alpine World Cup Hotel Hilton Zurich (SUI), Friday, 04.10.2019, 08:00
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
To the INTERNATIONAL SKI FEDERATION - Members of the Sub-Committee for Alpine World Cup Blochstrasse 2 - Peter Gerdol, Chief Race Director World Cup Women 3653 Oberhofen/Thunersee - Markus Waldner, Chief Race Director World Cup Men - Jean-Philippe Vuillet, Race Director World Cup Women Speed Events Switzerland Hannes Trinkl, Race Director World Cup Men Speed Events Tel +41 33 244 61 61 - Markus Mayr, Race Director World Cup Women Technical Events Fax +41 33 244 61 71 - Emmanuel Couder; Coordinator Men’s World Cup For information to: - Gian Franco Kasper, FIS President - Sarah Lewis, FIS Secretary General - Bernhard Russi, Chairman Alpine Committee - Atle Skaardal, Technical Expert Alpine - Stefano Pirola, Chairman Continental Cups - Jenny Wiedeke, FIS Communications Manager - Jürg Capol, Marketing Director - Stefan Huber, FIS Event Director - Janez Fleré, FIS Alpine Technical and Administrative Coordinator Oberhofen, 16.10.2019 Minutes of the Sub-Committee Meeting for the Alpine World Cup Hotel Hilton Zurich (SUI), Friday, 04.10.2019, 08:00. Dear Ski Friends, We are pleased to send you the minutes of the Sub-Committee Meeting for the Alpine World Cup, which was held in Zürich (SUI), 4th October 2019. We kindly ask that you send any remarks to the FIS Alpine Office in Oberhofen by the 30. October 2019 ([email protected]). We would also like to take the opportunity to inform you that the minutes are available on the Member Services section of the FIS Website: www.fis-ski.com. Thank you very much for your valuable contribution. Kindest regards, INTERNATIONAL SKI FEDERATION Niklas Carlsson Chairman Sub-Committee for Alpine World Cup Enclosure: mentioned INTERNATIONAL SKI FEDERATION Sub-Committee for Alpine World Cup Minutes of the meeting Sub-Committee for Alpine World Cup Friday, 04.10.2019, 08:00, Conference Room “Panorama A/B/C” All proposals and decisions of the Sub-Committee are subject to the confirmation of the Alpine Committee and to the approval of the FIS Council in November in Konstanz (GER). 1. Welcome and opening of the meeting Niklas Carlsson, Chairman of the Sub-Committee for Alpine World Cup, opens the meetings and welcomes all presents. 2. Roll-call Janez Fleré, Alpine Coordinator, calls the Roll (attached list). 3. Approval of the agenda The agenda is approved by the Sub-Committee. 4. Approval of the minutes of the meeting held in Cavtat-Dubrovnik (CRO) on 31.05.2019 The minutes are approved by the Sub-Committee. 5. Reports a) from the Chairman Niklas Carlsson The Chairman looked back at the previous meetings in Cavtat-Dubrovnik and he noted the commitment of the organisers and the NSAs to improve the World Cup. This passion is the biggest asset of this Sub-Committee. The collaboration between the stakeholders is great. It feels like the World Cup is one team, even though sometimes there are different opinions. After the World Championship in Are, the Council gathered and decided to implement the Alpine Combined and improve the Parallel format. He underlines the challenge for the race directors to increase the calendars and he asked once again to support their choices that brought a lot of tough compromises. He congratulated their amazing work on finding the right solution to set the right balance between disciplines in the calendars that has never been so changed in the past. Finally, the calendars have been set but everybody agreed that it is not acceptable to have these short term change sets into the calendars. He also pointed out the first decision to reject the 1st of January races during the meeting in Cavtat-Dubrovnik underlining the importance of the date itself. Consequently, the 1st of January has been set once again as part of the future calendars. He cared to underline once again how important is working together with the aim to develop the World Cup considering all the stakeholders and the requires in general. b) from Markus Waldner, Chief Race Director World Cup Men He welcomed everybody and he went through a short report from his side. He talked about summer warm temperatures that, luckily, didn’t affect too much the glacier conditions so he is confident to have Soelden in good condition to kick off the World Cup. He explains that the organisers and NSAs have been working on the feedbacks from last season, mainly the camera positions, the start times, the course preparation, safety installations and snow-making systems. Everybody is willing to work on these topics and get to make excellent events. He underlines that flexibility and cooperation are key words for the future and he thanked already all of the stakeholders for being flexible in terms of changing programs. He pointed out how important are the contingents plans and together with Infront they are working on it to improve the entire scenario including start timing coordinated with other sports, tv graphics and good story telling. Markus Waldner (FIS) also takes the time to remember one of the most important retirement in the skiing history with the case of Marcel Hirscher thanking him for his professionality and his commitment to this sport. Thank to him the entire World Cup set higher standard. c) from Peter Gerdol, Chief Race Director World Cup Women Peter Gerdol (FIS) welcomed members and organisers and thanked FIS that trusted on him on this new role. He also thanked Atle Skaardal for his outstanding job in the past in developing the Alpine Skiing Women’s World Cup with the purpose to keep working on the same direction and he also thanked him for the support he gave him in the last few months. He presented his team with: Jean-Philippe Vulliet, FIS Race Director Women Speed Events, Markus Mayr, FIS Race Director Women Tech Events, Andreas Krönner, FIS Technical Operations Manager and he presented Giulia Candiago as a new media coordinator for the Women’s tour. Peter Gerdol (FIS) explained that the summer was business as usual with inspections going on to improve as much as possible. FIS is working in the direction of course preparation especially for speed races and took action over the summer to make it a special inspection point with organisers. He mentioned at few issues that his colleagues faced last season such as jumps during the speed events and timing issue. Regarding the timing issue he affirmed that after Crans Montana issue last year, Swiss Timing and Longines reacted immediately providing a 3rd measurement system. Having no big events for the next season means that it will allow him to go into details venues by venues and understand in a better way everything he is not aware of. He had the opportunity to visit the places where the next big events will be held: Cortina D’Ampezzo (ITA), Courchevel-Meribel (FRA) and Beijing (CHN) to start having a bigger idea of the concept itself. d) from Jürg Capol, Marketing Director He affirms that in general the number of viewers is stable and it doesn’t show particular progress. The core market is represented by 5 countries which generate the 74% of the viewers. Jürg Capol (FIS) continues by showing his concern regarding the Downhill starting list order due to the fact that viewers are interrupting watching the race very early because they already know the result. He pointed out the Parallel format and the letter that EBU has sent where they underlined that the new Parallel format is not TV-Friendly. Jürg Capol (FIS) underlined that it’s our responsibility to not overlook. He reported the importance on watching into the future of Winter Sport and he underlined the importance of Alpine Skiing fans. The fans are the core of the Winter Sport community so FIS has to work in the direction of understanding their needs, interact with them, know them, improve their approach. This will add value to the sport in general and to its partners. He asked to the present to fill in the papers they will distribute answering the question if the World Cup is good enough. Jürg Capol (FIS) mentioned that Longines as a partner is willing to participate with a special prize translate in 1 gold kilo = 45.000 CHF. He reported the TV directors are key partners that love our sport and want to present it in the best possible way. He says that we can no longer ignore their feedbacks. The audience wants to see the best athletes of the world in a compact format. He concluded his presentation by pushing the sport side, the marketing side, the stakeholder in general and the communication side to create all together engagement and revenue for Alpine Skiing. Srecko Medven (Club 5) asked to create a Working group with all the stakeholders to review the World Cup in a bigger picture connecting it to a commercial value and he also asked to point out the responsible person that will generate power behind this group. Niklas Carlsson (FIS) confirmed the need to have a strategy for the future and to make sure to discuss it going forward. Srecko Medven (Club 5) asked to be proactive in this direction and not wait too long. Niklas Carlsson (FIS) asked to present a concrete proposal by the next meetings. 6. Rules Season 2019/20 6.1 Precisions Rules for World Cup Parallel Niklas Carlsson (FIS) remarked the work done by Ken Read and the working group on the Parallel format based on run and re-run system. Despite this, he underlined the importance of EBU feedback and the request from the organisers to not overlook at it due to the fact that they need to have the broadcasters’ support. For the fairness of the sport, without doubts, the best solution is “run and re-run” format but listening to the broadcasters’ and sponsor’ needs, one-run format is the best TV-friendly solution.