How the Alpine Ski calendar is made: a look into a complex puzzle

“There’s one thing you need to know when you start the process of putting together a season calendar: someone – probably several people – will be unhappy, whatever the decision is.”

When FIS Secretary General Michel Vion talks about the challenge of deciding on a season calendar of the FIS World Cup, his tone may be flippant, but the content is legit.

The factors that come into play over the several months of coordinating the make-up of the calendar are many: weather and snowfall conditions, environmental impact, the interests and availability of local organizers and community, venue readiness, broadcast schedules across different markets. Inevitably, the result raises questions.

This is true for all FIS disciplines, but nowhere is it more evident than in Alpine Skiing, where questions around the 2024/25 calendar have abounded: why is the season opening in Sölden, Austria, so early? How come travel is not always minimized? Why do the finals take place in the United States, when most athletes are Europe-based?

“We begin the process of building calendars several years in advance”, says Peter Gerdol, one of two Chief Race Directors for Alpine Skiing, along with Markus Waldner. “Alpine Skiing is an outdoor sport that can’t make use of stadiums like Ski Jumping or, to a certain extent, Cross-Country can. We use public slopes that the lift companies usually dedicate to the tourists; therefore, we must try to avoid the peak season. This is why planning must be aligned with local governments and tourist boards.”

Complex questions, complex answers

It’s a lot, but first things first, literally: this week’s season opener in Sölden. Why is it already in October, and why is it that another race in the same region of Ötztal, Gurgl, is not the next in line, but instead the World Cup travels to Levi, in Finland, before coming back to Austria?

“We’ve been having this conversation for years now,” says Vion. “Essentially, there are two key reasons why we have been sticking to the same calendar week for Sölden: on the one hand, the date avoids a clash with the holiday period in Austria and Germany, which is a season highlight for the resort and for the whole region. The other point to be considered is the weather conditions: we have been surveying the organizers in Sölden, and the conclusion is that, had the event taken place ten days to two weeks later, when snowfall increases on the glacier, in 16 out of the last 20 years we would have had to cancel races, which is obviously something we do everything to avoid.”

The thing with putting together a calendar is that it entails an inevitable domino effect: every date affects all the other ones. One of the implications of the current calendar set-up for Sölden relates to the question of traveling to Levi before returning to Gurgl, which, from a logistical and sustainability perspective, “is clearly not logical”, as Vion puts it.

He elaborates: “Gurgl is not located on a glacier, and if we were to stage that race in early November, immediately after Sölden, we would run a big risk of not finding the ideal snow conditions.”

This is why Alpine currently travels from Sölden to Levi, in a way that it is certain to encounter snow – because Levi is a role model of snow farming, which accounts for the vast majority of snow used at the event – and that the season may start with back-to-back events combining men and women.

International, yet sustainable

The threat of climate change has been at the center of every step that FIS takes, and this is no different for the process of building up the season calendars. This means a balancing act between growing snow sports, by bringing to as many viable locations as possible, while minimizing the season’s carbon footprint.

Then there are the implications of climate change on the weather conditions themselves: “Particularly at the beginning and end of the season, we try to privilege the areas where the temperatures are more likely to be suitable to our sport, such as Scandinavia or North America,” says Gerdol. “Then, in January and February we mainly race in Central Europe, at the most traditional venues.”

This is part of the reasoning behind taking this year’s FIS World Cup Finals to Sun Valley, in the United States, from 20 to 27 March, which will be Alpine’s second trip overseas from Europe after the stretch of four races between late November and mid-December. “For as much as most elite athletes are based in Europe, we are an international sport. If a venue in North America presents ideal conditions at the time when our Finals take place, we would be remiss not to consider it as a strong candidate to host the event,” says Michel Vion.

The conundrum is at the heart of a lot of the work carried out by FIS Sustainability Director Susanna Sieff and laid out in the FIS Impact Programme: reduce carbon emissions and facilitate a green transition while developing a sport that depends on and involves direct contact with nature.

“Climate change is the biggest challenge of our lifetime, so it’s very tempting to expect a silver bullet, a single action that would change the game immediately. However, the only way towards effective change is to operate within the realm of reality: we can’t simply stop the world, or snow sports for that matter, or our travels, but we can try to make an impact on every decision around it, be it by taking sustainability into account when drawing the calendar or by fostering the organizer’s ability to host more sustainable events,” says Sieff, referring to the recently launched FIS CO₂ Calculator: a tool tailor-made for snow sports events that FIS is making available free of charge to all National Ski Associations, as well as the Local Organizing Committees of all FIS events.

It all boils down to President Johan Eliasch’s point when summarizing FIS’ raison d’être: “As the governing body of snow sports, I see us having two sets of responsibilities: to athletes and fans, and to the planet. On the one hand, we need to keep making our sport attractive, ensuring that our calendar is rich enough for athletes to make a living. On the other, we have an obligation to be as conscious and sustainable as we can across our operations and events,” he says.