ALPINE SKI. The City Event in Munich on 2nd January 2011 will represent the first time that the world's best alpine ski racers will compete for overall Audi FIS Ski World Cup points in the middle of a metropolis.

Felix Neureuther at Munich Olympiapark, photo: Martin Hangen for FIS

The original plan also called for a high level forerunner for the historic event: Bastian Schweinsteiger, one of the best German football players at the present time was going to rise to the challenge. Surprisingly, it's not that long that he and the current German ski ace Felix Neureuther used to race against each other on the slopes and in fact last time around, Schweinsteiger even beat Neureuther. Unfortunately, Schweinsteiger's Bundesliga team Bayern München is now going to be at a training camp in Qatar so he had to cancel his comeback to the icy pistes.

The Organizer of the City Event, the Olympiapark GmbH is expecting some 15'000 spectators with ample capacity upwards. In 1986 and 1987, there were actually more than 50'000 attendees at the two parallel slalom races held on the north slope of the so-called Olympic Mountain. Given the proximity to the venue of the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2011 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the Munich City Event will provide a perfect prelude for the season's alpine ski racing highlight event, GAP 2011, beginning just 35 days later a mere 80 km away.

Felix Neureuther won the first Alpine City Event organized on a massive ramp in Moscow (RUS) in January 2009, where the so-called Audi FIS Champions Cup was also staged in November 2009.

"The man-on-man duels make the City Events into a challenge with very special quivers in the stomach," said Neureuther. His competitors will be known on 29th December as the overall World Cup Starting List on that day will determine the eligible top 16 ladies and 16 men starters for the competition on Munich's 200 m long slope.

An attempt to bring the top level of the sport of Alpine Skiing closer to the large residential centers in the urban areas, the first World Cup City Event in Munich will be thoroughly analyzed by FIS afterwards, to determine the further strategy for inclusion of this event format into the Audi FIS Ski World Cup in the future seasons.

To find out more about the 2nd January event, visit the new event website www.skiweltcup-muenchen.de

FIS news
25/11/2010

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