Cross-Country update from the FIS Autumn Meeting in Zurich
Oct 04, 2018·Cross-Country
During its meeting on Friday, 28th September the Cross-Country Executive Board discussed and approved a number of proposals.
FIS Cross-Country World Cup calendars
A small modification of the FIS Cross-Country World Cup 2018/19 was approved. Newly, the distance of the competitions in Québec City is 10 km for ladies and 15 km for the men on the both competition days on 23rd and 24th March 2019. No other changes were made in the 2018/19 calendar. To see the final version of the calendar, click HERE.
The final confirmation of the 2019/20 World Cup calendar is due by the FIS Council next spring. The Cross-Country Executive Board acknowledged and approved several changes. Liechtenstein Ski Association applied to host FIS Tour de Ski stages in Vaduz in 2019/20 and 2020/21. Both the Sub-Committee and the Executive Board were positive about the proposal. The competition programme of the Mid Scandinavian Tour was confirmed with Ostersund, Are, Storlien – Meraker and Trondheim as host venues.
Main rules changes
The Sub-Committee for Rules & Control discussed several issues, which were presented and approved by the Cross-Country Executive Board. From the season 2019/20 the minimum distance required for popular competitions to be valid for the FIS points will be reduced from actual minimum km 50 down to km 30.
It was also clarified that a distance competition must be at least 10km to qualify for FIS points as written in the FIS Points Rules.
Long term sustainability of Cross-Country Skiing
The main topic of the Cross-Country Executive board was a long term financial sustainability of Cross-Country Skiing. Costs for organising committees, national teams and other stake holders have been growing significantly in the past 20 years. The Executive Board would like to review the composition of costs to find out whether they are spent effectively and for the good of Cross-Country Skiing. Namely the costs related to waxing have been a big part of national team’s budgets as well as LOCs. A working group was approved to start working with a mandate to gather detailed information about waxing costs and is expected to present a proposal how to keep the costs under control.
FIS Cross-Country and Nordic Combined World Cup Organisers seminar
On Saturday, 29th September the FIS Cross-Country and Nordic Combined World Cup organizers seminar took place in Zurich. More than 40 participants from 21 World Cup venues actively took part in the meeting.
Besides the necessary FIS Cross-Country and Nordic Combined rules update and FIS news, the main topics were sharing knowledge and experience about snow farming, simplifying and unifying the World Cup accreditation system for 2019/20 and FIS communications update covering changes in the FIS Communication staff, sharing best practices and defining goals for the upcoming winter.
World Cup TDs seminar
Besides the LOC seminar a traditional FIS Cross-Country World Cup Technical Delegates update took place on Friday, 28th September. Karl-Heinz Lickert, chairman of the S.C. for Rules and Control provided World Cup Technical Delegates with the most important ICR update. Uros Ponikvar then led a practical session with analysing some of the Jury cases, which happened during the last winter.
