The former ski star Felix Neureuther has criticized the scheduling of the Alpine World Cup season ending this week and called for a restructuring of the race calendar for the future. The second American tour of the men, for example, had "a brutal travel stress, which is basically unreasonable for the drivers and which is even more outdated from the point of view of sustainability," said Neureuther in an interview with the "Augsburger Allgemeine" (Wednesday).
Top athletes would be forced by the tight timing of the races "to arrive with private planes in order to compete reasonably fit at the next training," said the 38-year-old. "For the trainers and service people, however, this meant thousands of kilometres in the car across Europe. You have to protect them."
For the women, the slalom in Are, Sweden, on Saturday went directly to Andorra, where the season finale will be held from this Wednesday. The first downhill training in Soldeu took place on Monday. "If you look at these routes, it's a complete madness," said Neureuther. "This has nothing to do with credibility and sustainability. The race calendar needs to be restructured according to these aspects."
There is still no final schedule for the new season. Neureuther also regrets this. "Given the size and complexity of this sport, this would be extremely important, only then can you implement plans in such a way that the product can really shine," he said. The world federation is called upon to do so. "The product 'alpine skiing' is so great, but has to adapt to the current problems of our time."