FIS. The FIS Council held its spring meeting in Ljubljana (SLO) on 6th June, immediately after the FIS Technical Committees had met in Portoroz (also SLO) from 31st May to 4th June.

The FIS Council dealt with a full agenda including reports by Organizing Committees from the concluded as well as the future senior and junior FIS World Championships, appointment of technical officials, proposals from the FIS Technical Committees with calendar updates and developments to various rules.

The main decisions of the Council in Ljubljana include the following:

Decisions directly related to ski sports

FIS World Cup calendars 2011/2012
Please see the final versions on the FIS Website under the respective discipline World Cups. The calendar for Freestyle Skiing was tabled in order to finalize the inclusion of ski halfpipe events following its recent addition to the program of the Olympic Winter Games.

Organizers of FIS World Championships 2012-2013
The following Organizers of FIS World Championships and Junior World Championships were appointed:

- Ski Association of Japan with Shichikashuku for the Grass Skiing World Championships in the year 2013 (proposed dates: September 3rd to 8th)

- United States Ski and Snowboard Association with Steamboat Springs for the Telemark Senior and Junior World Championships to be held 16th - 21st February 2015

- Italian Winter Sports Federation with Val di Fiemme for the Roller Skiing World Championships in 2015

- Italian Winter Sports Federation with Valmalenco for the 2012 FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships (subject to a technical inspection for aerials)

- German Ski Association with Burbach for the 2012 Grass Skiing Junior World Championships

- Royal Spanish Winter Sports Federation with Granpallars/Espot for the 2012 Telemark Junior World Championships

- Turkish Ski Association with Erzerum for the 2012 FIS Snowboard Junior World Championships

Olympic Winter Games and Youth Olympic Games
- The Council expressed its pleasure at the decision of the IOC to include ladies ski jumping and ski halfpipe to the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi 2014 and is optimistic that the alpine nations team event, snowboard slopestyle and ski slopestyle can also be added to further enhance the program, especially its youth appeal.
- The quotas for the Youth Winter Olympic Games Innsbruck 2012 were communicated in May 2011, with confirmation and re-allocation of quotas over the following months.
- Athlete Role Models (ARMs) for Innsbruck 2012 have now been appointed for each of the sports on the program to participate in activities such as "Chat with Champions" forums designed to inspire and educate. The athletes representing the FIS disciplines will be Cross-Country Skiing - Petra Majdic (SLO), Ski Jumping - Andreas Küttel (SUI), Nordic Combined - Samppa Lajunen (FIN), Alpine Skiing - Marco Büchel (LIE), Freestyle Skiing - Shannon Bahrke (USA) and Snowboarding - Nicola Thost (GER)

Proposals and requests from the Technical Committees

Cross-Country Skiing
- The new name for the pursuit is "skiathlon"
- The 5 best nations from the team ranking of the World Cup 2010/11 are required to start in all the World Cup competitions during the season 2011/12 except for one FIS World Cup weekend. Otherwise they will have no right to start the following World Cup weekend.

Ski Jumping
- A mixed team Ski Jumping competition has been introduced with the team comprised of two ladies and two men. The same level of prize money, CHF 70'000 as for a men's team event will be paid.

Nordic Combined
- FIS Nordic Combined Coordinator Lasse Ottesen (NOR) is included in the competition management, responsible for proposing and executing the planning, marketing and promotion of the discipline.
- A trial of the Nordic Combined "penalty race" will be carried out, which involves skiing additional penalty laps based on the difference in length from the leading jumping distance.
- The Nordic Combined Finals will include the top 30 ranked competitors who will compete over two jumps and a 15 km cross-country race.

Alpine Skiing
- Rules for injury protection of FIS points were revised, whereby a competitor will retain injury whilst he/she has not started more than five (5) times in one event and fifteen (15) times across all events during the season.
- The applicant for the homologation of a slope is responsible for the observance of applicable environmental regulations including for completion of any improvements.
- Rules for the general characteristics of a downhill course were updated, whereby the competitor adapts speed and performance to ski technical skills and individual self-responsible judgment.
- Races which have to be cancelled during the World Cup Opening and Finals will not be rescheduled.

Freestyle Skiing
- The inclusion a Team Event comprising three competitors with no more than two of one gender, as part of the FIS Freestyle Ski Aerial World Cup.

Snowboard
- Approval of a revised format for the finals of halfpipe competitions, as well as the introduction of a 100 point judging system.
- Addition of a jam session (formula 1 qualifying) as the third possible format for the qualification to the finals in snowboardcross
- In big air finals, minimum twelve men and six ladies will participate. Only the two highest individual scores will count if three jumps are performed and if two jumps are performed, highest individual score will count.

Freestyle Skiing - Snowboard Coordination Group
With the merger of Freestyle and Snowboard events and use of shared infrastructure in halfpipe, ski and snowboard cross, ski and snowboard slopestyle at the FIS World Championships, Olympic Games and other events, activities, harmonization of rules and procedures will be carried out through a Freestyle-Snowboard Coordination Group:

Other Committees
Other Technical Committees including Speed Skiing revised various regulations, whilst Telemark introduced rules for the Parallel Sprint.

Injury Surveillance System - Working Group for Alpine Technical Equipment
- Update to the regulations for back protectors and crash helmets. Further work is being undertaken with helmet specialists.
- The Council acknowledged the significant work that has taken place with research and testing of new equipment specifications to try to reduce the risk of injuries. A further meeting of the specialist groups to define proposals for equipment to be implemented from 2012/13 will take place at the end of June 2011.

New Committee for European Questions
15 members were appointed to the new Committee for European Questions with Niklas Carlsson (SWE) as chairman.

FIS Meetings
The FIS Calendar Conference 2013 will take place in Dubrovnik (CRO).

FIS press release
06/06/2011

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