FIS News
Freestyle Skiing season review with Joseph T. Fitzgerald
In an interview with the FIS Freestyle, Joseph T Fitzgerald, FIS Freestyle Coordinator evaluated the 2012/13 season.
Looking back, what is your overall evaluation of the past 2012/13 season?
We just finished off the FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships in Valmalenco. Now I am back in the office thinking about all the experiences, travel and locations since we started in late August 2012 in New Zealand and 23 locations later, ended in March 2013 in Spain. What a season, our biggest one ever: more new locations, Organisers, nations and continents, more competitions and competitors, more results, podiums and prize money and, unfortunately also more weather to deal with.
This was a huge season; we had 120 World Cup competitors more than last season and 363 more than in 2010; the number of participating nations increased by 8 from 34 last year to 42 this season. We had the same number of locations, but generally we had more competitions in each location such as at the Olympic test competitions in Sochi – Rosa Khutor, even if it wasn’t possible to carry out the slopestyle competition due to lack of snow. Another example of this trend was in Are (SWE) where we added ski cross to the popular mogul competitions there, and the FIS World Cup Finals with a full programme in Sierra Nevada (SPA). We also had greater integration with the FIS Snowboard World Cup, to gain synergies and economies of scale and scope with five Organisers (20% of our locations) for the pipe and slope events.
11 new Organisers featured on the different World Cup tours; 1 in aerials, 2 in moguls, 6 in ski cross and one each in slope and pipe.
On the Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup tour we were hit very hard owith the weather where snow and strong winds were the major issues. We lost over 60% of the training and competition days due to weather-related issues and a total of three World Cups competitions due to snow and fog. Our Organisers made heroic efforts, often all night long, to clean off the courses, which had basically disappeared under snowfalls and snowdrifts.
One of the season’s greatest impressions was the major development in ‘freestyle parks’ with common finish areas, specially designed around our different events. This was best illustrated in Rosa Khutor (RUS), Sierra Nevada (SPA) and Voss (NOR), where an entire side of a mountain had been sculpted and shaped into the different terrain features and jumps. Often we could see all of the different jumps and jumping taking place simultaneously in ski cross, moguls, aerials, slopestyle and halfpipe events. That’s Freestyle Skiing.
The true season highlight was the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships co-hosted in Oslo-Tryvann and in Voss-Myrdalen, Norway. The athletic performances were outstanding, and the events well staged by keen Organisers in fine weather. The Local Organisers and the Norwegian Ski Association literally “re-invented” Freestyle Skiing with these competitions. Thank you Norway for your love of all types of skiing!
Any major challenges?
Trying to maintain a standard of quality proves to be a week-in week-out challenge. The growth in the number of competitors seems to outstrip the number of qualified Organisers and Technical Officials available in our system. This is a challenge we now face at all levels.
Our goals vary in the different events, with the more seasoned events, like moguls and aerials focused on strong performance and seasoned Organisers. In ski cross, which is developing with great strides, we saw the introduction of new structures which allowed greater interaction of coaches and athletes into the final phase of course development. With regard to the newer events of halfpipe and slopestyle, we are trying to find a balance between operating the events, together with snowboarding, and trying to qualify competitors for the 2014 Games. The response has been overwhelming to the pipe and slope events with very strong interest from the competitors with very high numbers of participants. The interest was so strong we had a hard time trying to make the schedule work out!
On the road to the next season...
We took a large step forward this season and many challenges were overcome. Next season, the focus of the teams will be on using the World Cup to select the 282 athletes that will take part in the ten Freestyle Skiing events in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. The first two thirds of the season will see intense competition to book tickets!
Source: FIS
Looking back, what is your overall evaluation of the past 2012/13 season?
We just finished off the FIS Freestyle Junior World Ski Championships in Valmalenco. Now I am back in the office thinking about all the experiences, travel and locations since we started in late August 2012 in New Zealand and 23 locations later, ended in March 2013 in Spain. What a season, our biggest one ever: more new locations, Organisers, nations and continents, more competitions and competitors, more results, podiums and prize money and, unfortunately also more weather to deal with.
This was a huge season; we had 120 World Cup competitors more than last season and 363 more than in 2010; the number of participating nations increased by 8 from 34 last year to 42 this season. We had the same number of locations, but generally we had more competitions in each location such as at the Olympic test competitions in Sochi – Rosa Khutor, even if it wasn’t possible to carry out the slopestyle competition due to lack of snow. Another example of this trend was in Are (SWE) where we added ski cross to the popular mogul competitions there, and the FIS World Cup Finals with a full programme in Sierra Nevada (SPA). We also had greater integration with the FIS Snowboard World Cup, to gain synergies and economies of scale and scope with five Organisers (20% of our locations) for the pipe and slope events.
11 new Organisers featured on the different World Cup tours; 1 in aerials, 2 in moguls, 6 in ski cross and one each in slope and pipe.
On the Audi FIS Ski Cross World Cup tour we were hit very hard owith the weather where snow and strong winds were the major issues. We lost over 60% of the training and competition days due to weather-related issues and a total of three World Cups competitions due to snow and fog. Our Organisers made heroic efforts, often all night long, to clean off the courses, which had basically disappeared under snowfalls and snowdrifts.
One of the season’s greatest impressions was the major development in ‘freestyle parks’ with common finish areas, specially designed around our different events. This was best illustrated in Rosa Khutor (RUS), Sierra Nevada (SPA) and Voss (NOR), where an entire side of a mountain had been sculpted and shaped into the different terrain features and jumps. Often we could see all of the different jumps and jumping taking place simultaneously in ski cross, moguls, aerials, slopestyle and halfpipe events. That’s Freestyle Skiing.
The true season highlight was the FIS Freestyle World Ski Championships co-hosted in Oslo-Tryvann and in Voss-Myrdalen, Norway. The athletic performances were outstanding, and the events well staged by keen Organisers in fine weather. The Local Organisers and the Norwegian Ski Association literally “re-invented” Freestyle Skiing with these competitions. Thank you Norway for your love of all types of skiing!
Any major challenges?
Trying to maintain a standard of quality proves to be a week-in week-out challenge. The growth in the number of competitors seems to outstrip the number of qualified Organisers and Technical Officials available in our system. This is a challenge we now face at all levels.
Our goals vary in the different events, with the more seasoned events, like moguls and aerials focused on strong performance and seasoned Organisers. In ski cross, which is developing with great strides, we saw the introduction of new structures which allowed greater interaction of coaches and athletes into the final phase of course development. With regard to the newer events of halfpipe and slopestyle, we are trying to find a balance between operating the events, together with snowboarding, and trying to qualify competitors for the 2014 Games. The response has been overwhelming to the pipe and slope events with very strong interest from the competitors with very high numbers of participants. The interest was so strong we had a hard time trying to make the schedule work out!
On the road to the next season...
We took a large step forward this season and many challenges were overcome. Next season, the focus of the teams will be on using the World Cup to select the 282 athletes that will take part in the ten Freestyle Skiing events in the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. The first two thirds of the season will see intense competition to book tickets!
Source: FIS
