All of the disciplines have been busy over the past
few days with their Committee meetings and Ski Jumping
and Nordic Combined were no different with a full
agenda in their gatherings.
The top news coming out of Ski Jumping was the implementation
of a new Ski Flying competition format, which shall
be implemented for the first time during the upcoming
summer Grand Prix to test the system. In the 2014/15
season the new format shall be applied to World
Cup level, counting the points of the qualification
for the final result for all competitors, also for
the ten already pre-qualified athletes. The best
48 qualifiers will move on to the competition.
Meanwhile, the prize money for ladies’ Ski Jumping
has been slightly increasedto reward the top 20
athletes and not only 15. The proposal was initiated
by the athletes through their Athletes‘ Commission
representative Sabrina Windmueller. Starting in
the coming winter, the prize money for World Cup
events will therefor be a minimum of CHF 19‘890
per competition (up from CHF 17’940).
Besides these two announcements, there were no surprises
in the competition calendars. Next to the FIS Nordic
World Ski Championships in Falun (SWE), the 4-Hills-Tournament
will remain the season highlight for the male jumpers.
All modifications and calendars for summer 2014
and winter 2014/15 can be found here: http://www.fis-ski.com/ski-jumping/
Nordic Combined
The biggest news to come out of the meeting was
the announcement that the first steps will be taken
with Ladies’ Nordic Combined, through the organisation
this summer of a training camp alongside two competitions
in Obertsdorf (GER) from 26th to 30th August. An
impressive 11 nations reported that they would take
part in the training camp with athletes and coaches.
Also of high interest was the finalised competition
calendar which will go to Council for final approval.
The calendars presented were for the 2014 Summer
Grand Prix, the 2014/15 World Cup and Continental
Cups. New for the upcoming season are stops in Sapporo
(JPN) and Liberec (CZE). In addition, a preliminary
calendar for 2015/16 was presented.
On the promotional side, an improved pre-event presentation
was discussed in addition to enhancing television
graphics. Positive TV, website and social media
figures were also presented to the Nordic Combined
Committee.
