FIS. The FIS Council held its Spring Meeting in Portoroz (SLO) on Sunday 28th May and dealt with a full agenda, including regular items such as reports from Organising Committees of the FIS World Championships and Olympic Winter Games, the appointment of technical officials, proposals from the FIS Technical Committees, FIS World Cup calendars and updates to various rules.

The main decisions of the Council in Portoroz are as follows:

FIS World Cup calendars 2017/2018
Minor modifications to the FIS World Cup Calendars for the 2017/2018 season proposed by the respective Technical Committees were approved and will be available on the FIS website from Monday 29th May, as well as future calendar drafts for Cross-Country and Alpine Skiing until 2019/20.

Of note in the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup calendar for the upcoming season is a new city event in Oslo (NOR), which will take place on New Year’s Day. Also a two-run downhill will be staged in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (GER) on 3rd February.

The FIS World Cup calendars in the three Nordic disciplines presented by Viessmann feature new additions and special highlights too: Cross-Country includes individual and team sprint competitions in Dresden (GER) on 13th-14th January; Ski Jumping will compete for medals at the FIS Ski Flying World Championships in Oberstdorf (GER) from 19th-21st January and Nordic Combined will return to Hakuba (JPN) site for the Nagano 1998 Olympic Winter Games en route to PyeongChang 2018.

The Freeski and Snowboard World Cups will also see approximately half of the events in halfpipe, slopestyle, and big air events staged together as part of the harmonisation process between Snowboard and Freestyle Ski.

Naturally, the season highlight across all disciplines will come in February when the 2018 Olympic Winter Games are staged in PyeongChang (KOR).

FIS World Championships and Junior World Championships
The Council confirmed the candidates for the FIS World Championships in 2022 and 2023 as well as the procedure for the election next May at the FIS Congress in Greece. The deadline for applications for the FIS Freestyle Ski and Snowboard World Championships 2023 has been extended to 1st November 2017.

Courchevel-Meribel (FRA) and Saalbach-Hinterglemm (AUT) are bidding to host the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships, while Planica (SLO) and Trondheim (NOR) are the candidates to host the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Vikersund (NOR) is the candidate for the FIS World Ski Flying Championships in 2022.

The competition programmes for the FIS World Championships 2019 in the Alpine Events in Are (SWE), Nordic Events in Seefeld (AUT) and Freestyle Ski and Snowboard Events in Park City (USA) were approved.

A number of FIS Junior World Championship Organisers were appointed too:

    Sauris (ITA) Grass Skiing 2017
    Freestyle Ski and Snowboard 2018:
    Cardrona/Treble Cone (NZE) halfpipe, slopestyle, big air events in Cardrona, cross and snowboard parallel races at Treble Cone
    Raubichi (BLR) Freestyle aerials
    Åre/Duved (SWE) Freestyle moguls and dual moguls
    Goms/Ulrichen and Kandersteg (SUI) - Nordic disciplines and U23 Cross-Country 2018
    Muerren (SUI) - Telemark 2018

Olympic Winter Games
Reports were received from PyeongChang 2018 with a detailed review of the Test Events in all six FIS disciplines from the last season, Beijing 2022 and the Winter Youth Olympic Games Lausanne 2020.

Technical Committees
Various updates to the International Competition Rules (ICR) were made. A more detailed summary for each discipline will be published in the next edition of the FIS Newsflash. Key decisions include the following:

Cross-Country Skiing
Specific zones on the courses will be installed where double poling is prohibited.

Ski Jumping
A system will be tested during the Summer Grand Prix with no pre-qualified athletes. All ski jumpers will need to go through the qualification round.

The first-ever ladies’ Team Competitions will be staged in Hinterzarten (GER) and Zao (JPN).

Nordic Combined
Rules for the Ladies’ Continental Cup which begins in 2017/2018 were approved.

A ‘Reverse Gundersen mass start (10 km ski race followed by one round of jumping) will be tested at the Continental Cup level next winter.

Alpine Skiing
Following the successful introduction of the new starting order for the speed events last season, an adjustment to the regulation for downhill training was made, whereby the best ten competitors present will be drawn between 1 and 19, odd numbers.

Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski
In its first full season as a joint committee, discussions focused on staging more Snowboard and Skiing events together, in addition to harmonising rules and regulations of the two disciplines.

Other disciplines and FIS Committees
Updates to the Rules for Masters Skiing, Speed Skiing, Telemark, Equipment and Advertising Matters were agreed.

Governance of FIS
The latest accounts and financial affairs of FIS were reviewed by the Council and approved. The future FIS Strategic Plan will be led by three working groups within the Council for sport, governance and business aspects.

Anti-Doping Update
The Council acknowledged the current status of cases and actions by FIS following the publication of the WADA McLaren Reports. It expressed its support for the introduction of the Independent Testing Authority by the IOC and WADA to improve the credibility of the anti-doping system.

FIS National Associations
The provisional membership application from the Dominican Republic as associate member was accepted, subject to the approval of the FIS Congress in 2018.

Committee Members
On proposal of the National Associations, changes to a number of Committee Members were made, including the appointment of Adam Malysz (POL) as a member of the Ski Jumping Committee.

The members of the Athletes Commission 2017 - 2019 were confirmed following the elections held at the FIS World Championships last winter. Konstantin Schad, GER (Snowboard) was elected chair and Hannah Kearney, USA (Freestyle Skiing), vice-chair by their fellow FIS Athlete Commission members. Former chair, Jessica Lindell-Vikarby, SWE (Alpine Skiing) will remain as Athletes’ Commission representative in the FIS Council until the Congress 2018 at which the election of the FIS Council will take place.

FIS Congress
The 52nd FIS Congress in 2020 will take place in Marrakesh (MAR).

FIS World Snow Day
The seventh edition of FIS World Snow Day will take place on 21st January 2018 after more than a half a million participants took part in the sixth edition.

FIS news
28 May 2017 17:39