Russian Ski Association Elects New Management

The Russian Ski Association (RSA) elected new management at their General Assembly on 27th December, 2019. After the official confirmation of the elections by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, the new administration management stands as follows:

• FIS World Championship gold medallist and 44-time FIS Cross-Country World Cup winner Elena Välbe is the new president, succeeding FIS Council Member Andrey Bokarev.
• Välbe is joined by Youry Garmash as General Director and Georgy Mnatsakanov as Secretary General.

The Russian Ski Association is a non-governmental organisation, which represents Russian ski sports in the international field. The organisation includes four all-Russian sports Federations: the Russian Alpine Skiing and Snowboard Federation, the Cross-Country Ski Federation of Russia, the Freestyle Federation of Russia and the Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined Federation of Russia.

The Russian Ski Association (RSA) was founded in 2005 on the basis of The Russian Ski Union.

The Russian Ski Union was founded in 1994 and it had combined the Cross-Country Ski Federation of Russia, the Nordic Combined and Ski Jumping Federation of Russia, the Freestyle Federation of Russia, the Alpine Skiing and Snowboard Federation of Russia. The reason of establishing of the Union was the necessity of uniting all of these 4 Federations for representing Russian Federation in international organizations, and first of all in the International Ski Federation (FIS). Due to the regulations of FIS one country can be represented only by one federation (association).

The idea of uniting different sports organisations into one federation or association is realised in such countries as Austria, Norway, Finland, Sweden, France and Italy.

In 1999 the Russian Government gave a direction to public organizations of Russia to re-register. But The Russian Ski Union was able to be re-registered only under conditions that the 4 federations had already been re-registered. Some federations were late with this procedure so the Russian Ski Union wasn't re-registered either. The Union existed relatively till 2005, actively representing the Russian Federation on the international field.

In 2005 the decision was made to recreate the Union. Its new name was more relevant for the International Ski Association.

The Russian Ski Association has a great authority in the world: 18 representatives of the Russian Federation work in different FIS Committees nowadays.

The International Ski Federation conducts international meetings two times a year and once in two years, it conducts ordinary Congress to hear reports and elect new officials. Our delegates take actively part in these meetings.

The President of Russian Ski Association is a major figure for FIS. He is a binding member of the Russian delegation during the International Congress and other great international forums. Russian Ski Association is one of the largest Russian Associations of Olympic winter sports. Every year about 20 winter sports competitions are carried out in Russia, and all of them are officially announced in the FIS events calendar. The Cross-Country World Cup, the World freestyle, snowboard and alpine ski Championships are among them.

Today as a part of preparations for the Olympic Games Sochi-2014, a new sports center has been built. It has a stadium, ski jumping hills, alpine skiing tracks and slopes for freestyle and snowboarding. The commissioning of this sports center on the territory of Russian Federation will give a possibility to hold Championships and World Cups in all ski disciplines and increase the image of RSA on the world arena.

The Russian Ski Association is recognized by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and included in the register of Russian public organizations.