FIS Calendar Conference Wrapped Up In Croatia

The FIS Calendar Conference took place in the resort town of Cavtat-Dubrovnik (CRO), when FIS delegates engaged in a productive conference characterised by a series of meetings and important discussions for the future of alpine skiing and the World Cup Tour. 

After a debrief and a look back at the past season, which culminated with the successful finals in Soldeu (AND), it was time to look at the future with potential developments and introductions to the current Alpine World Cup Tour. The Alpine Committee proposed the following changes, which are subject to approval from the FIS Council on Sunday, for the coming season. 

Start Field Reduction
To keep building on the start field reduction process that was initiated last year for the Men’s Alpine World Cup events, stricter criteria have been set for athletes to be able to be in the start field. It will not be sufficient anymore to have a maximum of 80 FIS points.

Each National Ski Association will be able to enter one competitor for FIS World Cup races as long as he is ranked within the first 150 athletes of the valid FIS point list of the event concerned or within the first 30 of the World Cup Starting List (WCSL). 

To be able to start in the parallel events, athletes will need to have no more than 140 FIS points in one of the five alpine events (SL, GS, SG, DH, AC). These changes, if approved, will result in an average reduction of 10 athletes per race. These changes will only be applied to the men’s competitions.

Parallel Format

The new Parallel (PAR)- formerly known as City Event or Team Event- has been revised in an effort to produce a format that is fair for athletes and interesting for fans at the same time. The format will feature a single qualification run for the best 30 competitors according to the actual Parallel World Seeding List (PWSL). The first 16 ranked athletes from the qualification run will qualify to the round of sixteen. All heats will have a “run and re-run” format to ensure fairness and integrity.

Calendars

Additionally, the calendars for the 2019/20 season – featuring three Alpine Combined for the men’s tour and four for the ladies – were presented, as well as the drafts for the next three seasons. They will be confirmed on Sunday by the Council and will be made available afterwards.

The Alpine Combined has been considered once again and the goal is making it more attractive in term of structure of the program itself. This implementation contributed on the enlargement of the calendar with 43 races on the ladies’ side and 46 for the men for the 2019/2020 season. 

Few dates and venues are still in open discussions: 

• Oslo (SWE) declined the intention of hosting the city event January 1st and Davos (SUI) candidate itself. The final decision will be made July 10th. 
• Yuzawa Naeba (JPN) will agree or disagree to host two Giant Slalom instead of one Giant Slalom and one Slalom. The final decision will be made June 10th.

With these major proposals to be approved by the FIS Council, alpine skiing set the foundation for another great season. The traditional fall meetings will take place beginning of October in Zurich, where the last details will be discussed before the winter.