In less than a week, the international FIS Family will travel to Varna (BUL) for the FIS Calendar Conference from 3rd-6th June 2015.

Besides the approximately 100 official meetings of the FIS Committees, more than 750 participants will have an opportunity to spend some time with their friends in the FIS family, alongside their work schedule.

The following documents provide further details about leisure activities. Get your golf set and sunscreen ready!

Varna 2015 - sightseeing programme
www.fis-ski.com/mm/Document/document/General/06/98/15/Varna2015-sightseeing_English.pdf

Varna 2015 - recommended places
www.fis-ski.com/mm/Document/document/General/06/98/48/Varna2015-recommendedplaces_English.pdf

Weather in Varna

The weather forecast looks promising for the conference week with sunny to partially cloudy skies. Temperatures at this time of year are warm with an average of 27 degrees Celsius (approximately 80°F) during the day.

For further weather information follow this link.
www.weather.com/weather/tenday/l/BUXX0007:1:BU

FIS wishes all participants safe travels to Varna and looks forward to seeing everyone next week!

FIS news
27 May 2015

Preview of Main Committee topics for Varna

During the FIS Calendar Conference, there will be much work carried out by more than 50 FIS Committees with a full line-up of meetings. During this time, rules, regulations, calendars, nomination of officials and much more will be discussed by the Committees.

Read a preview per FIS Olympic discipline by clicking on the links below:

Cross-Country Ski

In just a few days, the international FIS family will travel to Varna in Bulgaria to gather for the traditional FIS Calendar Conference from 2nd - 6th June 2015.

The meetings of Cross-Country Committee and its six different Sub-Committees (for Popular Skiing, Roller Skiing, Youth and Children, Cross-Country World and Continental Cup, Rules and Control, and Ladies) will take place from Wednesday, 3rd June, to Friday, 5th June.

On several agendas, there are items to develop the sport of Cross-Country Skiing in all its aspects. One of the main points of the Sub-Committee for World Cup and Continental Cups will be the finalization of the FIS Cross-Country World Cup calendar 2015/2016 and detailed planning for the next few seasons. One of the main topics will be how to deal with a relatively weak period between the end of the Tour de Ski and the beginning of the World Ski Championships. Months of January and February are the best period for the winter sports in terms of media and spectator interest and should be filled with strong Cross-Country Skiing events.

In addition, discussion about classical technique and double poling will take place. Another important question for the future is the development of Cross-Country skiing all around the World. The system (quotas, financial support) is going to be reviewed in order to support development programs and efficient World Cup programs in a larger number of nations.

One of the main topics for the Rules & Control Sub-Committee is setting the start list in interval start competitions and other rules adaptation questions. Other key points on the agenda include the development of the ICR and World Cup rules.

Thanks to a very active Athletes’ Commission and intensive work by Kikkan Randall (USA)), the Cross-Country Committee is in direct contact with the athletes and receives their feedback. Kikkan Randall is travelling to Varna with results of the athletes survey and several items on her list.

The Cross-Country Youth and Children’s Sub-Committee will discuss the last season and various programs for support and development of young skiers. An important point on the agenda concerns the next Youth Olympic Games (YOG) in Lillehammer 2016.

The Sub-Committee for Popular Skiing is going to review last season and various long distance competition series. An important point on the agenda is the future of popular Cross-Country skiing.

The Sub-Committee for Roller Skiing will discuss development of the sport and in particular future World Cup calendar and candidates for the World Championships.

Sub-Committee for Ladies’ Cross-Country will tackle various items ranging from coaching seminar for women to different initiatives and projects for health.

FIS Cross-Country News is going to provide you with an overview of the most important decisions in a newsletter next week.

Ski Jumping

Next week the FIS Calendar Conference will be held in Varna, Bulgaria. There the different Committees of the various FIS disciplines will convene from Wednesday to Sunday. For ski jumping the meetings will be mainly about the following topics:

- Review of last season
- Modification of the competition equipment rules
- Revision of the international competition rules
- Adjustments on World Cup rules
- New system for the equipment control
- New criteria for the selection of organizers
- Grand Prix 2015 and World Cup Calendar 2015/16

In addition also meetings of the organizers for the World Cup and the upcoming World Championships (2016 Kulm, 2017 Lahti, 2019 Seefeld) and Olympic Games will take place in the Golden Sands Resort Hotel. Issues discussed there will be the infrastructure, the athlete's area, the equipment control, the start and mixed zone area, marketing guidelines and the data service.

Nordic Combined

With the beginning of June, the Calendar Conference in Varna, Bulgaria approaches fast and next to the traditional confirmation of the final versions of the calendars, there are numerous points on the Nordic Combined agenda.

In Varna, the Nordic Combined Committee will come together and discuss about rule changes and the future development of the discipline. Much time and consideration will be given to the proposals for new rules or rule changes that were made earlier this spring, discussed by the Nordic Combined Sub-Committee for Officials, Rules and Control and the Executive Board at the Spring Meetings in Zürich and now sent out to all National Ski Federations for feedback. Core points will for example be the new set of rules for the FIS Youth Cup for boys and girls and new guidelines for the measuring procedure for the Equipment Control among other things.

In addition to the Committee meetings, the Nordic Combined organisers will also meet in Bulgaria for a day of OC meetings. Its agenda features updates and feedback from FIS and FISMAG for the organisers as well as a group work session on the topic of event planning and emergency solutions.

Alpine Ski
All set for the Alpine meetings in Varna

From Wednesday June 3rd to Saturday June 6th the Bulgarian town of Varna, located on the Black Sea coast will welcome the FIS family at the International Hotel Casino & Tower Suites for the FIS Calendar Conference 2015.

As every Spring, Alpine officials will face a busy schedule as the various Alpine Sub-Committees and Working Groups will undertake three full days of meetings before presenting at the Alpine Committee on Saturday morning, the last day of the Conference.

The Sub-Committee meetings for Classification of Alpine Competitors and Ladies' Alpine Skiing are scheduled on Wednesday afternoon and will be the first strictly Alpine related meetings of this year’s Conference. The agenda of the Ladies’ Alpine Skiing meeting anticipates a special report by the Athletes Commission that should provide valuable input to the future work of the Sub-Committee.

On Thursday morning the meetings of the Sub-Committees for Europa Cup and Intercontinental Cups will provide a first debrief of the 2014/15 season and discussions regarding the finalization of the competition calendars for the 2015/16 season.

Thursday afternoon will be dedicated to the meetings of the Sub-Committees for Alpine Rules and Alpine Youth & Children and a meeting focusing on competition equipment.

On Friday morning, the Sub-Committee for Alpine World Cup will hear reports from

Chairman Niklas Carlsson, Chief Race Directors Atle Skaardal and Markus Waldner and FIS Marketing Manager Marcel Looze before finalizing the World Cup calendars for the 2015/16 season and discussing the calendar proposals for the 2016/17 – 2018/19 seasons.

In the afternoon, Club 5 will hold their traditional meeting of the Calendar Conference before attending the World Cup OC Seminar where best practices from the different organizers will be shared.

The Alpine part of this year’s Calendar Conference meetings will wrap up on Saturday morning with the Alpine Committee meeting were the various Alpine Sub-Commissions and Working Groups will have an opportunity to present their work before everyone returns to their homes to continue preparing for the upcoming ski season.

Freestyle Ski
Positive trends set frame for Freestyle Skiing meetings at FIS Calendar Conference 2015

Normally in a post-Olympic season, numbers tracked in Freestyle Skiing in terms of entries and overall numbers of competitions had the tendency to decrease before they come back the following seasons.

However, in Freestyle Skiing FIS can happily report that numbers are continuing in a positive direction and are higher than the Olympic year in terms of entries, results and the numbers of competitions. The 2015 FIS World Championships in Kreischberg (AUT) also showed a very significant increase in the television distribution compared to 2013.

The upcoming 2015/16 season appears to be on the increase with a greater number of World Cup competitions from the past year.

During the FIS Calendar Conference 2015 in Varna, the Freestyle Skiing Committee will gather to review the report on rule changes to revise the dual moguls competition. Significant work has been done on this plan in the past two years and the Freestyle Committee will consider a full package of proposals during this meeting. This was one of the successful events held at the World Championships and received very positive remarks from all involved.

Meanwhile, certain refinements in the presentation of slopestyle competitions will start to be considered at the meetings.

In ski cross, there has been a significant improvement in the operations of the competitions after the course development seminar held in Munich (GER) last fall. There will also be some proposals to have the heat format used from the beginning of the competition versus having a timed qualification round.

In aerials, the team competition was positively introduced at the World Cup last season and there is a series of revisions of ICR rules and World Cup procedures to ensure its continued strong development.

The schedule in Varna entails the meetings of the Freestyle Skiing Committee, the Freestyle Skiing Coordination Group, the Freestyle Snowboard Coordination Group, the Freestyle Skiing Competitions Advisory Group, the Freestyle Promotions Committee, Freestyle Skiing Rules and Officials, the Ski Cross Working Group as well as the Sub-Committee for Freestyle Skiing and Snowboard for Youth & Children.

The decisions made in these meetings set the base for the upcoming 2017 FIS World Championships and the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

Snowboard
2016 calendar, Olympic test events and super series to be discusses in Varna

With only one week to go to the Spring meetings in Varna, Bulgaria FIS Officials and representatives of the national federations are getting ready to work on many topics.

Besides the traditional confirmation of the final calendar version for the up-coming season, there are some more points on the agenda the Snowboard Committee will talk about.

One main point on the list are the first slopestyle and snowboard cross World Cup events in PyeongChang, Korea which will be held next winter as official test events for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games.

FIS Officials will also give a brief summary of the current design status and the construction work progress.

Another focus will be on the further harmonisation between snowboarding and freestyle skiing.

Besides the work on a shared set of rules the FS & SB Coordination Group will discuss a joint long-term calendar which will become necessary due to the planned implementation of 'super series' events of combined snowboard and freestyle skiing slopestyle, halfpipe and big air as well as snowboard and freestyle skiing cross World Cups.

The first of those three to four combined high-level events are scheduled for the 2016-17 season with a first set of competitions to be tested next winter.

In addition, the Snowboard Coordination Group, Snowboard Judges Working Group and Snowboard TD Working Group as well as the Snowboard Task Force will also meet to discuss updates and developments of the sport. 

FIS news
27 May 2015