Cross-Country: Season review by Jürg Capol
Thu, Apr 8, 2010 - By FIS
FIS Cross-Country Race Director Jürg Capol took the time to assess the past 2009/2010 season in the VIessmann FIS Cross-Country World Cup.
Q. Jürg Capol, are you satisfied with the season 2009/2010?
Jürg Capol: We can be happy with the past season because Cross-Country Skiing could take yet another step forward. The snow situation in many resorts was just amazing offering winter sport at its peak. Retail sales were positive or, in other words, many retailers sold out their stock! Our competition formats worked fine and the implementation of the ski exchange boxes and bonus points in the 30 and 50 km mass start races brought in an additional positive element which was highly appreciated by our TV experts. The FIS World Cup calendar has been stabilized with formats and resorts, and our World Cup strategy is working. And the top World Cup stars received a lot of attention and managed to develop their profile which I'm happy about as well. Moreover, many popular races have reported great results in terms of their participation numbers and the biggest ones even informed about historical records.
Q: What was your personal season highlight and why?
Jürg Capol: The men's pursuit at the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver was one of most exciting competitions, positive feedback has been received from a large number of non-hardcore Cross-Country fans, and it seems like the entertainment seekers could be reached too. The offensive skiing we saw in several mass-start events provided a real re-launch and breakthrough for this format.
Q: What needs to be changed for next season from your perspective?
Jürg Capol: We will implement a new marketing and sponsoring concept for the FIS Cross-Country World Cup. The World Cup will deliver completely new value for commercial interest and this will make it interesting for key players in the global sponsoring market. Thanks to this we should be able to add new manpower to support the sports organisation. Also, we have to be even more offensive with jury decisionsand I'm convinced that additional manpower will help a lot for that too.
Contributed by Sandra Spitz