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European lockdowns likely to impact ski racing

Tricia

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I thought the WC was happening exclusively in Europe because it was the smart thing to do.

 

Swede

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Corona on the rise this side again in most countries. This season is gonners (my guess). It will be local turns only, earned ones.
 
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Tricia

Tricia

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Corona on the rise this side again in most countries. This season is gonners (my guess). It will be local turns only, earned ones.
I have been watching the news and, as you can imagine, am saddened by the Corona wave.
I had high hopes. :(
 

4ster

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Glad I was up at 2 AM to watch Solden. I hope that’s not all we get for the season.
 

Average Joe

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Maybe they could have a "bubble" in say... New Zealand? Oh, never mind, too late.
The FIS blew it when they cancelled the North American segment!
Vermont (so far) would have been perfect to bubble. Beaver Creek, Copper, Aspen, Lake Louise....and they picked Europe because it was "safe." :)
 

James

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I thinked they picked Europe because...it’s Europe.
If they were going to bubble anywhere it would be Austria. But maybe too many people-fans, so you pick Swizerland? Eastern Eurooe would prob make most sense, but don’t know if there’s enough venues ready to go.
 

hbear

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Realistically given budget constraints and logistical nightmare, a real bubble would be very difficult (impossible) to pull off for alpine racing. nevermind if one could find the facilities willing to completly shut down to host said bubble.
 

Primoz

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Skiing is "slightly" different then let's say NHL or NBA, or even F1/motoGP. First of all, there's maybe 0.001% of the money in skiing that is in previously mentioned sports. Second (and partly also because of first), it's sport done in public slopes. Ski resorts have realistically loss of income, when there are races, as they need to close down part of their slopes etc. With making "bubble" and closing down completely for races, they can pretty much shut down their operation. I'm not sure there would be many interested in doing this, as main point of hosting races, attracting people to their resort, is then gone. Third, after races, people (skiers, coaches, servicemen, organizers, tv crews, journalists...) would spread all over the Europe until next race. Some would need to work in between, others would need to train in between.... on pretty much public slopes with people around.
Personally I just don't see how this would work out, so as @Swede wrote, I have also feeling we won't see much of this season, as situation over here is certainly not going to get better. Season of normal cold, flu etc. is just starting, and adding corona on top of that doesn't really seems like we are here for week of lockdown, but more likely until next spring.
I'm still thinking ski places will be open, as otherwise, whole Austria can go good bye, whole most northern part of Italy (Sudtirol, Trentino..), half of Switzerland, most of eastern France... will do same, as their pretty much all income comes from tourism. With closing ski resorts it's gone. It's mostly gone anyway due travel restrictions (we have some apartments here and we had 80% less income this year compared to last year, so not really all that great year, and somehow I don't think next one will be much better either), but if you close ski resorts down, it's gone, and there's no country that can print so much money to get over something like that. So I think we will still be skiing, but for racing, I really don't have much hopes.
And next thing is, how skiing will get through something like this. I was talking with few friends from WC, and everyone are complaining things are already in deep sh**it. Most of ski companies have really bad year, which is understandable with this situation. Who will spend few 1000eur for new equipment when you don't know if you will even use it, or even worse, when you don't know if you will even have your job next month. This means, they are cutting their expenses, and WC is pretty big expense, so either way, even if all will go well and races will be there (I'm already now almost 100% sure even if they will go through, they will be without spectators, which means huge minus in budget for everyone), it's not going to be same anymore after this crap.
 

Average Joe

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I thinked they picked Europe because...it’s Europe.
If they were going to bubble anywhere it would be Austria. But maybe too many people-fans, so you pick Swizerland? Eastern Eurooe would prob make most sense, but don’t know if there’s enough venues ready to go.
Tongue in cheek. I just find it ironic that that had the women skipped Soelden and decamped to rural VT.....
Reality - No way the WC can plan for the unpredictable.
 

Erik Timmerman

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I talked to Paula Moltzan about this back in September before she departed for Europe. I asked her if she would even be allowed to go at all or if she would stay and race NorAms (who knows if we will even have those?).n She talked about all kinds of things that had been floated for the Women's WC, such as having multiple races at each venue. Like just staying in Solden and doing 3 or 4 races there. She also talked about how some of the venues told the WC to stay away. One of those was Levi. They were like "we don't have any Covid and don't want any, see ya next year!".
 

fatbob

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If the racers actually want a WC they'd be better signing on for as many races as possible at each venue that's still prepared to host them.

Personally if I was running a Euro resort I'd probably be cancelling on the FIS - it's a circus I could do without while trying to manage uptime, staffing, guest protocols, marketing or not and negotiation with national and regional governments. Plus its not a good look/has negative marketing impact if regular guests are not able to visit but see the "look what you could have won" racers on TV.
 

James

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She also talked about how some of the venues told the WC to stay away. One of those was Levi. They were like "we don't have any Covid and don't want any, see ya next year!".
And yet Levi is going ahead! I wonder if they go and quarantine there.

Injecting yesterday-
D5BCE897-59B9-4D65-9A3F-2A949F2ADBB5.jpeg


And selling tickets, which include 2 masks per day. No foreigners.
  • All tickets must be bought in advance from the website. There is no ticket sales by the entrance.
  • Parking ticket must be bought in advance.
  • The venue has been newly planned in order to serve a safe and healthy environment for the audience. Different groups such as teams, media, volunteers and audience are kept apart in their own areas.
  • The audience is required to use masks in the venue. The ticket includes two domestic, disposable Lumi Medical mouth-nose covers per day.
  • We kindly reequest for responsibility in leisure time outside the event.
  • Following side events can be followed from the live streams: public draw and winners' interviews after the race.
  • Unfortunately foreign audience is not able to enter Finland and the race this year.

Meanwhile, Killington would have been in trouble. There’s a few cold days now, and next week is in the 50’s.
 
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Primoz

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Finland is probably country that's doing best at the moment in EU, so their current measures are different then those in Austria, Germany, France... Another thing is, Levi is in middle of nowhere, some 500km north of first city with more people then reindeers. It's joke not as serious comment, so that someone won't take this seriously, especially as my wife is from some village about 100km south of Levi, so I certainly don't mean anything bad with this :D
With this, things are certainly different (and easier) in Levi, then they will be later on when/if tour will move down south.
 

markojp

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Sadly, we might not be too far behind in some states. ID is out of beds and exporting cases to OR and WA. ID politicos are all in on the 'it's no big deal' ideology and their stance endangers the economy/treatment capacity of their neighbors. If beds get filled, things shut down. What a mess.
 

4ster

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@4ster I'm not 100% sure but I think I saw somewhere yesterday, that French ski federation said that Val dIsere racers are currently still on.
Yes, I saw that too.
Let’s keep our fingers crossed for an improvement in the next few weeks. The article says the closure for now is till December 1st
In France, President Emmanuel Macron announced the second lockdown in France that will begin on Friday, until December 1st.
 

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