Fall meetings are ahead

Despite mild temperatures in central Europe, the Continental Cup season is already over in the southern hemisphere and the traditional fall meetings are ahead. From 25th to 29th September 2018 the FIS Technical Committees will gather at the Hilton Hotel in Zurich to work on the last details for the upcoming winter 2018/2019.

On the World Cup level, the most important rule change is the harmonization of the individual parallel event rules. In the past, the PGS held in Alta Badia since 2015 and the PSL tested for the first time last year in Courchevel had a different qualification system and slightly different rules. In order to facilitate understanding for the public and to better promote that discipline, those rules have been reviewed and a proposal for a harmonization will be made at the Alpine World Cup meeting on Friday 27th October.

Another anticipated topic is the discussion on the reduction of the start field. Especially on the men’s side, the high number of participants in a World Cup race (average of 75 athletes in SL!) became a problem to offer an interesting and compact product for TV and to ensure an appropriate and high quality course setting for second runs. Even though no magical solution has been found, the discussion will be carried on in the World Cup meeting to define a strategy for the reduction of the start fields.

Of course, the FIS Race Directors will also summaries the results of their numerous summer inspection and the future calendars will be discussed. The upcoming World Championships in Åre and the World Cup Finals in Soldeu will take the opportunity to present their latest improvements and rise the anticipation for those major events.

The discussions promise to be interesting, as does the post-Olympic season 2018/19.