Alpine World Cup Race Dates May Be Tweaked to Reflect Climate Change

Proposals to slightly tweak the FIS Alpine World Cup ski racing calendar to reflect the impact of climate change have been put forward and are subject to approval at an International Ski & Snowboard Federation (FIS) council meeting on May 24.

Last Autumn around 80% of races planned for October and November had to be cancelled, including a series of planned cross-border downhill races between Zermatt and Cervinia due to have been staged for the first time. Then during the Alpine Skiing World Championships in Courchevel and Meribel last February, many hundreds of athletes backed a Protect Our Winters petition that the FIS do more to fight climate change, including moving races to later in the season.

The planned changes include moving the second attempt to launch the new Zermatt-Cervinia race to later in November. 

Other changes, probably not related to climate change concerns, include switching the format of the World Cup Finals to cover two weekends instead of a five-day format. With no World Championships or Winter Olympics next winter the Finals due to take place in Saalbach, Austria, will be the biggest competition of the 23-24 season.

A new team combined event, where a nation uses a different skier for the speed run and slalom run, is also proposed to debut for men and women. The traditional combined race has been staged at the Olympics since 1988 but not been held on the World Cup in the last three seasons, with parallel races staged instead. The IOC have indicated that the combined will be run again at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, but that the team parallel run at the last two Olympics in China and South Korea  would not return.

A press release from the FIS confirmed that plans to drop the traditional Women’s World Cup speed races in Lake Louise, Alberta, will go ahead with the race moving to Mont Tremblant in Quebec. There was no mention of the men’s races in Lake Louise.