15th World Para Ski Championships - Day 5

As the results are released by the Chief Judge - they will appear on this link

The lovely smiling face of the new Female Para-Ski World Champion, Christina Franz from Switzerland - photograph courtesy of Johann Huemer

21st February, 2015

At the close of yesterday's blog I said I would report today on the Competitors' Meeting held at 16.00 hrs last night, before the Bavarian evening.  It was a well attended meeting chaired by Michael Egger, the Chair of the Para-Ski Committee at IPC.  He congratulated everyone on a successful competition, all the winners and all those who had competed.  He explained that the idea of holding a competitors' meeting at the end of a World Championships was so that the Committee could listen to and share ideas for the future of our discipline.  He would also give information to the competitors on the work of the committee.

He stated that a delegation, including the Mayor from St. Johann, Austria had visited today to collect the FAI flag in preparation for the next World Championships to be held there in 2017.  The Mayor had been very impressed with what he had seen whilst here and promised to provide excellent facilities and support for another great competition.

Michael then talked about the disappointing World Cup Series for 2015, which resulted in two competitions being incompleted due to dreadful weather and the third was cancelled for the same reason.   Undaunted, they proposed to continue witth the World Series for the coming year starting in January with a test event for 2017 - and wished the Czech Republic a successful third attempt at a competition.

He then spoke about the changes to IPC this year and welcomed Dr. "Exi" Rainer Hoenle who is now the 1st Vice-President following the election in January.  He also discussed the only change made to the rules by the Para-Ski committee this year, which had been to reduce the ski race to one run for a minimum competition to be declared, as with the number of accuracy rounds which currently are 2.  Obviously should this happen the points awarded towards parity between the two events would be adjusted to give a more even playing field.

Michael then asked if there were any questions from the floor, or comments on this World Championships.  A Russian competitor asked that future Slalom courses be closer to the FIS standards as he felt the gates were too close together.  This disadvantaged a team that arrived at a competition having trained for one set of standards to be met by anorher - that it could not be called a Giant Slalom.  There was discussion from the floor which supported this comment and Michael promised the committee would look into it for the future.

There was then a question from the floor (same Russian competitor) regarding the use of a video camera to challenge decisions made on the pad by the judges.  There was considerable discussion not excluding the comments that this was already under discussion by the Accuracy Landing and Freefall Style committee who had looked at and considered systems already under development.  It is not as simple as may be first thought, including, how many cameras, where are they sited (particularly for paraski) when are they used, would it be an advantage to competitors.  It is an ongoing discussion which again the committee will look at for the future, although there was much opposition to it.

The next item raised which caused a lot of discussion was the wish on the part of the competitiors to continue with the "trial" of having Female Teams of only two members.  Michael said that this had been proposed originally to increase female participation in the event, whereas although it was introduced this year there were exactly the same number of female competitiors.  However one of the German Female competitors pointed out that they had entered for the first time, introducing another NAC with a female team and they would not have done so if they had to have 4 members.  Many felt it was too early to make a decision to do away with the idea and asked the committee to continue for the next World Championships.  It was also proposed that this may also be a good idea for the Junior event.  There were arguments well presented by both sides - but a show of hands in the room indicated that this is something competitors would like to continue.

Michael then went on to explain the change made last year at IPC that Para-ski move to a different form of Jury than that used at all other First Category Events.  One of the reasons Michael had proposed this in the first place was he felt that the costs were not justified, particularly when this was paid by the competitors out of sanction fees.  After a little discussion, Michael was happy to accept a suggestion from the competitors that the committee look at the possibility of reducing the sanction fees paid by Para-ski competitors.

The Russians proposed that each nation worked with their military in encouraging more participation in Para-ski and also that CISM look to developing it as one of their parachuting events, anything that would increase participation in this event.  There were also suggestions that we looked at linking up with FIS to become part of their family.  Michael said that when they had looked at this in the past they did not believe the standard of skiing in a Para-ski competition would be of interest to FIS.

The meeting ended and everyone left for the evening arranged at a local Bavarian tavern, where traditional drinks and food were served, whilst music played and people danced - it was a very successful evening.

Graeme and Chris Windsor	Guenter Berendt and Dare Svetina
Michael Egger	Mr. and Mrs. Helmut Bastuck
Chief Judge Gernot Rittenschober's briefing	Attention at the target

Thanks to all the Judges and their good work

At 17.00 hrs this evening (21st February) the final ceremony of the 15th World ParaSki Championships will take place with the Award Ceremony and closing of the Competition.

Congratulations to all our new World Champions, medal winners and all those who competed.  See you next time.