The Swiss ski team dominates the World Cup like hardly ever before. But the biggest challenges for skiing and Swiss Ski lie beyond sport.
Marco Odermatt wins the overall World Cup for the third time in a row.
Leonhard Foeger / Reuters
Marco Odermatt ended the season in style with a record. He won the overall World Cup with the largest margin in history of 874 points. He no longer had to fight for the small crystal ball for the best downhill skier of the season. He received this in Saalbach-Hinterglemm after the weather made a race impossible. Unlike Lara Gut-Behrami, who had given up the downhill ranking the day before.
The Swiss Alpines have had a dream winter, it was even one of the most successful in history. Gut-Behrami and Odermatt won seven of the ten individual balls for Switzerland. In addition, there was victory in the Nations Cup for the fourth time in the last five years, with 13 different athletes achieving 56 podium places. In addition, the boys are pushing harder; in the speed men, the promising Franjo von Allmen and Arnaud Boisset achieved their first podium places in the World Cup.
This shows that it wasn’t just the outshining Odermatt and Gut-Behrami who drove strongly. Even without Odermatt, Switzerland would have the overall World Cup winner with Loïc Meillard, and the men’s championship was won in a dominant manner. The women narrowly lost to Austria in the overall ranking, even though world champions Wendy Holdener, Corinne Suter and Jasmine Flury were injured for at least part of the season.
Swiss Ski President Urs Lehmann therefore sees his vision fulfilled. “Where we are today is close to perfection,” he said in Saalbach, by which he not only means the sporting situation, but also the organization in the association. Since last year, Walter Reusser as CEO Sport and Diegoüger as CEO Commercial have shared operational leadership, while Hans Flatscher came back from the junior ranks as alpine boss. The association is also doing well financially; in recent years, Swiss Ski has increased sales from 60 to a good 70 million francs.
What will skiing look like in 25 to 30 years?
Sporting success, strong association leadership, enough money – so everything is perfect? No. The association is plagued by worries about the future that have no internal reasons. Skiing is facing crucial years. Two major problem areas in particular characterized the season that ended: the misery of injuries and climate change.
Around a fifth of the planned World Cup races were not held due to weather conditions. The changed climatic conditions challenge those responsible on several levels. When does training and driving take place? And what will skiing look like in 25 to 30 years? Swiss Ski is trying to develop these answers in its “Vision 2050”, which is not just about ecological issues, but also about economic and social ones.
The ecological question involves determining which ski areas will still have snow in 20 years. Switzerland could have an advantage here in the future because it has many ski areas at medium altitudes between 1,500 and 2,500 meters above sea level. Although these are not as easy to access as many training areas in Austria, which can be easily reached by car from the valley, they are more guaranteed to have snow. The Austrian Ski Association (ÖSV) has already adjusted its training planning and moved it more to spring because the conditions on the local glaciers are better then than in autumn.
Departures in Zermatt/Cervinia will probably be canceled
Competition planning is also a focus. Winter is moving further and further back, and this must also be reflected in the racing calendar. Sölden would be prepared to postpone its season-opening races to November. However, the possible relocation was blocked for a long time; It has only been clear since the last day of the season that the descents in Zermatt/Cervinia will probably no longer be on the calendar next winter after eight cancellations in eight attempts.
The racing calendar is also a deciding factor when it comes to the second important issue: the dozens of injuries this season, which also affected numerous top drivers.
For ÖSV managing director Christian Scherer, it cannot be ruled out that some of the injuries are due to a lack of speed training kilometers. The downhill skiers used to train in North America in November. With the planned races in Zermatt, this was no longer possible in autumn 2023, which was particularly important due to the poor summer training in South America due to the weather.
The importance of snow-reliable training slopes in Europe will increase in the future. The Swiss team found perfect conditions in Zermatt last summer, while the Austrians were only allowed to train on one strip of giant slalom – the glaciers in Austria were impassable.
Lara Gut-Behrami wins the overall World Cup for the second time after 2016 – and takes the balls in the Super-G and the giant slalom.
Gian Ehrenzeller / EPA
The search for the pattern in the injury misery
In addition to the calendar, attempts are being made to counteract the injuries with rules and the advancement of research. From next season, wearing an airbag will be mandatory in the World Cup. After Aleksander Kilde’s serious cut injury in Wengen, the mandatory wearing of cut-proof underwear is also being discussed; numerous drivers are already wearing them voluntarily. Other ideas concern the further development of racing suits, ski and slope preparation – and, above all, an “intelligent” binding that should open at the right moment.
In order to take useful action, you need to know the problem. Understand the pattern underlying the injuries if there is a common denominator. Is the aggressive material the problem? Or the slopes? Or the development of the athletes? Here, Swiss Ski is investing even more money in data analysis and is also making the results available to the FIS and the other associations.
The knee injuries to Suter, Flury and Hählen as well as Holdener’s broken foot were more than just a bummer in the Swiss season. They also represent that every success is just a snapshot.
There may be no simple solutions for the future of skiing. The fact that Swiss Ski is tackling the problems actively, far-sightedly and with sufficient resources suggests that the association is prepared for the challenges of the future. And the current pioneering role will no longer be given up so quickly.