Nordic Ski World Championships TV Road Book
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Tyrol Tourism Board Maria-Theresien-Straße 55 6020 Innsbruck · Austria +43.512.5320-0 t +43.512.5320-100 f [email protected] e www.tyrol.com w TV-ROADBOOK FIS Nordic World Ski Championships Seefeld 19.02. - 03.03.2019 Table of contents Welcome Tirol is a region passionate about sport. Many events underline this enthusiasm for outdoor activities, from classics such as 02 Introduction to Tirol! the 1964 and 1976 Winter Olympics to the annual FIS Nordic Combined World Cup in Seefeld and the legendary Four Hills 04 1. Nordic skiing in Tirol Tournament each January. Tirol has a long and rich tradition of hosting Nordic skiing events. At the 52nd FIS Nordic World 09 2. Tirol – Heart of the Alps Ski Championships in Seefeld, 200,000 spectators are expected to attend 21 competitions spread over two weeks. The FIS 12 3. The venues of the FIS Nordic World Ski Nordic World Ski Championships 2019 are actually the third Championships 2019 Seefeld world championships to be held in Tirol in a very short space 12 3.1 Seefeld of time, following hot on the heels of the IFSC Climbing World 16 3.2 Innsbruck Championships and the UCI Road World Championships in 2018. 2 · TV-Roadbook - Seefeld 2019 · www.sport.tirol · www.sport.tirol · TV-Roadbook - Seefeld 2019 3 PERSONAL PROFILE Peter Schröcksnadel 1. Nordic skiing in Tirol Peter Schröcksnadel, born in Innsbruck in 1941, is one of the most influential figures in t he world of Austrian skiing. He has been president of the Austrian Ski Federation (ÖSV) since 1990 and is also a successful entrepreneur. When Schröcksnadel became president, the Austrian Ski Federation was heavily in debt and dependent on the support of sporting goods companies. Similar to Bernie Ecclestone in Formula 1, Schröcksnadel took the step of regaining the federation’s full marketing rights and giving control of them back to those in charge. Today the Austrian Ski Federation has a budget totalling many millions of euros and is debt-free. Seefeld was one of the first places in the Alps In 1963 Frenes, who worked for many years Mass-participation events like the Koasalauf to make cross-country skiing popular, at that as head of the local tourism association, in St. Johann in Tirol and the Dolomitenlauf time under the name of „ski hiking“. Today first came across the sport of cross-country in East Tirol draw huge numbers of skiers, the Seefeld plateau is THE Nordic hotspot in skiing during a trip to Norway. Though while professional events like the FIS Nordic Werner Schuster Tirol. Its success story is inextricably linked hugely popular in Scandinavia, this sport Combined World Cup in Seefeld and the IBU Werner Schuster, the successful coach of the German national ski jumping team, lives in in with one name: Walter Frenes. He may not was completely unknown in Tirol at the Biathlon World Cup in Hochfilzen attract the village of Mieming, 40 kilometres west of Innsbruck. Schuster was a ski jumper himself have invented cross-country skiing, but he time – despite the fact that alpine skiing tens of thousands of spectators. from 1986 to 1995. After finishing his professional career, he trained as a ski jumping coach did import this traditional Scandinavian was booming. It was clear to the 82-year- in Innsbruck. From 1998 Schuster worked as a coach at the Stams Ski High School. In 2007 sport to the region and thereby ensured old Frenes that cross-country skiing had Stams Ski High School he became head coach of the Swiss ski jumping national team before being appointed coach of that Seefeld would go on to become one great potential as an outdoor activity for One of the most renowned training centres the German national team in March 2008. In 2014 Schuster celebrated his greatest success as a of the most popular cross-country skiing holidaymakers on the Seefeld plateau. What for talented young Austrian winter sports coach so far when German team won gold at the Olympic Games in Sochi. destinations in the Alps. he needed was a Norwegian cross-country stars is Stams Ski High School. Located about skiing expert to explain to the Tiroleans 40 kilometres west of Innsbruck, it is the how to make cross-country trails. Walter oldest ski sports school in the world and was Frenes hired a sport teacher and journalist founded by the Austrian Ski Federation as who, armed with a pair of skinny skis, spent an education and training base for up-and- Alexander Stöckl three winters in front of a log cabin in Seefeld coming youngsters. The school has been An important name in Nordic skiing is 45-year-old Alexander Stöckl from St. Johann in Tirol. offering passers-by the chance to try out training world champions and Olympic Since 2011 he has been the head coach of the Norwegian national ski jumping team. Stöckl this exotic sport and then writing about champions for 50 years. wrote the lyrics for the official song of the 2012 Ski Flying World Championship in Vikersund: his experiences. As the sport became more „Flying into the Future“. Together with his father Paul Stöckl, an engineer, he invented a new popular, the image more attractive, the outfits Ski jumping: Andreas Felder, Martin version of the ski jumping boot in 2012 designed to allow jumpers to place more pressure on sexier and the trails longer, Seefeld developed Höllwarth, Toni Innauer, Daniela Iraschko, the ski during take-off. This invention, which caused a sensation at the Four Hills Tournament the first mechanical trail-grooming machine Martin Koch, Armin Kogler, Andreas Kofler, in 2012/13 with Anders Jacobsen‘s wins in Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, was in the world in 1985 with the help of a Heinz Kuttin, Hubert Neuper, Richard christened the „Stöckl shoe“ by the press. modified snowmobile imported from Canada. Schallert, Gregor Schlierenzauer, Karl „Then the Scandinavians came to us to learn Schnabl, Ernst Vettori, Andreas Widhölzl, something,“ recalls cross-country pioneer Michael Hayböck, Stefan Kraft, Gregor Walter Frenes with a smile. Schlierenzauer Stefan Horngacher Cross-country skiing: Markus Gandler, Maria The Polish team is also trained by a Tirolean. Since 2016 it is Stefan Horngacher from Wörgl Today, more than half a decade later, cross- Theurl who has been responsible for the performance of one of the best national teams in the world country skiing - alongside alpine skiing - is Biathlon: Christoph Sumann as the successor to former national coach Łukasz Kruczek. During his own active career, increasingly popular. Nordic winter sports Nordic combined: Christoph Bieler, Günter Horngacher became Team World Champion twice (1991, 2001). From 2004 to 2006 he worked enthusiasts throughout Tirol can choose Csar, Wilhelm Denifl, Christoph Eugen, Felix in Poland as an assistant to Heinz Kuttin, then head coach of the Polish national team and from around 4,000 kilometres of perfectly Gottwald, Bernhard Gruber, David Kreiner, currently head coach of the Austrian national team. Horngacher is today head coach of the groomed cross-country trails - from easy Mario Stecher Polish national team featuring stars such as Kamil Stoch and will remain in this role at least loops on flat terrain to challenging routes until the end of the season. with steep climbs and even glacier trails at more than 2,500 metres above sea level. 4 · TV-Roadbook - Seefeld 2019 · www.sport.tirol · www.sport.tirol · TV-Roadbook - Seefeld 2019 5 PERSONAL PERSONAL PROFILE PROFILE Mario Stecher Alexander Pointner Since 2018 he is sporting director for ski jumping and Nordic combined with the Austrian Alexander Pointner originally hails from the province of Upper Austria but today also lives in Ski Federation. Former Nordic combined star Mario Stecher is famous around the world. His Tirol. From 1995 to 2005 he lived in the village of Kematen before moving with his family to greatest sporting successes include two Olympic gold medals (Turin 2006 and Vancouver 2010), Innsbruck. As head coach of the Austrian national ski jumping team, Pointner has become the two Olympic bronze medals (Salt Lake City 2002 and Sochi 2014), two World Championship most successful coach in the history of the Austrian Ski Federation (ÖSV) and in the history titles (Oslo 2011), three World Championship silver medals (Ramsau 1999, Lahti 2001 and Val die of the national ski jumping team. His national team led by Thomas Morgenstern, Gregor Fiemme 2013) and one World Championship bronze medal (Trondheim 1997). He lives with his Schlierenzauer, Wolfgang Loitzl, Andreas Kofler and Martin Koch achieved 32 medals at wife Carina and his two sons in the Pitztal valley in Tirol. Stecher says the cross-country trail in major events, 17 of them gold, as well as four overall World Cup victories and six victories in the Wildmoos area of Seefeld is his favourite cross-country skiing trail anywhere. a row at the Four Hills Tournament. Markus Gandler Ole Einar Bjørndalen Markus Gandler has been sporting director for cross-country skiing and biathlon at the Another Nordic superstar who has settled in Tirol is the Norwegian biathlete Ole Einar Austrian Ski Federation since 2003. His most famous achievement as a cross-country Bjørndalen. He lives in Obertilliach (East Tirol), where there is a roller skiing course for skier came at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, where he won silver behind Bjørn summer training named after him at the local biathlon centre. He is the most successful Dæhlie in the 10km – Austria’s first medal in cross-country skiing. Looking ahead to the athlete ever at World Championships and Olympic Winter Games in terms of both the World Championships in Seefeld, he comments: “We have a very young team.