The Beaver Creek ski world cup fiasco

Something is awry with the international ski federation (FIS). Its top management brings ski racers, their coaches, officials, tech support and press people across an ocean and half a continent, spend valuable time and money preparing venues with the help of volunteers and huge logistic expenditures, then weather doesn’t allow for the races to be run on the planned days, and all goes to waste. 

I was also almost going to forget mentioning this huge carbon footprint for naught! I know, there are the sacrosanct TV rights contracts, the money they bring and then racers have to be in Val d’Isère next, but there should be a better way to run an international competition calendar! To start with, events should be clustered per continent.

Only one trip to North America or Asia within one season, the rest should stay in the Alps perhaps with the caveat that Scandinavia should be treated as another region. Then if the “white circus” finds itself in such a remote area, delay the events till it’s possible to run them and to hell with the TV constraints or make them adaptable! 

After all skiing requires just the right weather conditions and is so dependent on Mother Nature compared to other sports! Also, have less events, lighten the calendar load big time so athletes can recharge their batteries a bit. In this age of AI and computer aided scheduling that shouldn’t be rocket science to bring ski racing back into an area of good old common sense!