World Cup Ski Racing Dates Announced
18th September 2020
Last modified on May 20th, 2021
The International Ski Federation has finalised the details for this winter’s World Cup alpine races with a host of changes made due to Covid-19.
It’s taken months of discussions to come up with a plan to deal with the current Covid-19 situation.
Changes have been forced in order to reduce numbers and costs for teams, organisers and everyone else involved.
“Changes to the calendar include separating a number of events to have only womens or mens races as well as dividing speed and technical events to limit the number of participants in total,” FIS says.
“The measures taken all focus on protecting the health and welfare of the participants to the best extent possible.”
It had already been announced that the first World Cup races of the 2020-21 season on the Rettenbach glacier in Soelden in the Austrian Tirol, are being brought forward by a week so they can take place away from the public.
A women’s giant slalom will take place there on 17th October and a men’s GS the next day, with no spectators allowed.
And the entire North American race programme for November and December has been cancelled:
All North America World Cup Alpine Ski Races Axed Due To Covid-19
The full extent of the changes to the programme is now clear.
The opening World Cup slalom races in Levi, Finland, are affected.
This year there will be two women’s slalom races on 21st and 22nd November at Levi but the men’s slalom – usually the first race of the season for the technical specialists, including GB’s Dave Ryding – will be rescheduled later in the winter.
The men’s parallel race in Alta Badia in the Italian Dolomites has been replaced by a slalom and Adelboden in Switzerland will host three races with an additional giant slalom on Friday 8th January.
The women will be racing in St Moritz, Switzerland, with two Super-G races on 5th and 6th December, one week earlier than previously scheduled.
This will be followed by Courchevel in France hosting a two-race technical weekend.
There will be one parallel event for women and one for men in Lech-Zürs in Austria.
The now traditional New Year’s Day parallel event, which was this season due to be held in Davos in Switzerland, has been postponed until 1st January 2022.
The decision to postpone was taken because of the proximity to the centre of the town during peak tourist season.
FIS, Swiss-Ski and the local organisers said it would have been challenging to conform to the Covid-19 requirements.
One thing’s pretty certain.
We won’t be seeing crowds like these at the famous Night Race in Schladming, which PlanetSKI had the pleasure to enjoy in January this year…
Schladming Excels With Dave Ryding In Top 10
Schladming: A Celebration Of Slalom
Overall, the men’s calendar for 2020-21 will feature 39 races, while the women will compete in 35 races.
The calendars are expected to be signed off by the FIS Council on 3rd October.
