A number of serious innovations are waiting for the world ski race in the season 2006/07, the start of which is scheduled for next weekend. Slowly losing the first lines of the rating to biathlon, which, thanks to a well-thought-out program of popularization, has become a favorite of television with all the ensuing consequences (the best time to show, solid sponsorship packages, audience excitement, etc., etc.), leaders of the International Ski Federation (FIS ) finally caught on and began the fight for the fan. A significant part of the races has already been transferred from the forest to stadiums and city streets. In particular, the competitions of the first stage of the World Cup will be held this Saturday and Sunday along the Rhine promenade in Dusseldorf.
The organizing committee of the tournament does not even bother that in West Germany this weekend there will be up to 15 degrees of heat with rain. Four thousand tons of artificial snow has already been prepared for filling the track, which is delivered by 26 dump trucks to the embankment. If the audience does not go on the track, she must come to the audience. And this is just the beginning. A real revolution in ski racing is expected closer to the new year and at the finish of the season. In the Christmas decade, from December 29 to January 7, the five cities of the Czech Republic, Germany and Italy will host the stages of the new commercial Tour de Ski super series, and the points accumulated in these races will go into the overall standings of the World Cup.
The excitement around the new series is such that, for example, the Swedish Ski Federation promised its winner in the overall standings a million kroons of prize money in addition to the 140 thousand dollars that the skier or skier of this country will earn for first place in the sum of all starts. By the way, two months before the start of the Tour de Ski, Norwegian Marit Bjorgen and German Tobias Angerer are considered his potential favorites, and Russian racers are not even included in the third tier of applicants for the main prize.
Other innovations in the World Cup program include the first in the history of skiing competitions under the roof and testing in the races of the so-called “national boxes” - specially equipped sections on the track, where athletes during the competition will be able to get food from representatives of their team and even change skis, if necessary. This innovation, experts call the real revolution, equating skis with the car "Formula 1", the participants of which during the races stop at the pit stop to change tires, and often new wheels help pilots change the nature of the competition in their favor. The same thing can happen in cross-country skiing, which has turned not only into competitions of athletes for speed and endurance, but also into an absentee contest of service groups that “guess” or do not “guess” the lubrication for a particular race. Wegard Ulwang, head of the International Ski Federation’s Committee for Cross-Country Skiing, formerly the legendary Norwegian racer, believes that the introduction of national pit stops - primarily television service providers - can seriously affect the popularity of cross-country skiing. People are arranged in such a way that it is interesting for everyone to look into the neighbor’s kitchen, and here someone else’s “kitchen” will be in his house.
I agree with Ulwang FIS Director Swiss Jörg Kapol. "Our task is to make the World Cup in cross-country skiing more attractive for the masses, and any change will be dictated by the desire to popularize our sport as much as possible," he says. However, far from everyone shares the optimism of Ulwang and Kapol. 2006 Olympic champion in a duathlon (15 km with classic plus 15 km free-wheeling) Russian Evgeny Dementyev shared on one of the online forums his thoughts on the new products of the season: “If after five kilometers of the race it will be possible to change the classic equipment to“ skating ”, everyone will make one stop, and the pit stops will not justify themselves.To spend the extra 15-30 seconds in the pits, I consider it pointless, skiing will never become a “Formula 1".
Dementiev himself is still out of reach. As part of the Russian national team, he is preparing for the season in the Sayan Mountains, where there is no mobile telephone service. At the first stage of the World Cup, Eugene will not speak. Together with him, the bronze medalists of the Turin Olympics in team sprint Ivan Alypov and Vasily Rochev miss the competitions in Dusseldorf. They will enter the battle for the crystal prize from the second stage.
World Cup Fall 2006October 28-29. Germany. Individual and team sprint.
November 18-19. Sweden. Women - 10 km, men - 15 km (classic); relay races.
November 25-26. Finland. Women - 10 km, men - 15 km (classic); team sprint.
Boris TITOV