Ski Alpin: Reichelt advocates changes to start number regulations

Directly from the first training course of the ÖSV-Speed-Herren for the coming season Hannes Reichelt will travel to the congress of the Ski World Association (FIS) in Costa Navarino (Greece) to speak for the concerns of the athletes. As is well known, they demand a change of the starting number regulation for the speed races and get support from FIS Chief Race Director Markus Waldner.

Austria’s speed team is currently on Cyprus to work on the basic endurance for the coming World Cup and World Championship winter. “I don’t think about how many training courses this summer is for me, I think you lose motivation. The ambition and motivation are still there. It’s great for cycling here, you ride three to four hours a day, you lay an incredible foundation in basic endurance,” said 37-year-old Reichelt.

He arrived earlier and left earlier than his team mates, because the FIS Congress has work waiting for the athlete’s representative. “The number control in the speed range is a huge issue for athletes, the entire field is very dissatisfied, that’s the number one issue,” said the man from Salzburg. In March the top riders met with race directors Waldner and Hannes Trinkl in Kvitfjell to talk about possible changes in the World Cup, about starting order, suits and piste preparation.

The unanimous tenor was that the speed start order, which has been in force since the 2016/17 season, should fall. According to the current regulations, the top ten of the world ranking list are allowed to choose odd numbers between 1 and 19, which means that the best in the world can be found in a long drawn out starting field. They wanted to keep the audience in front of the TV for longer. The athletes now demand that runners from 1 to 30 may choose every single number between 1 and 30. This would probably mean that the top drivers would start again in the package, because they know in advance what will probably be the best numbers on a certain track under expected conditions. Above all, this should create more equality of opportunity.

“I hope that the runners’ opinion has more weight than that of the television stations. That it’s not only about selling the sport well, but also about giving fair races. The runner variant would be the clever one for the future,” Reichelt said. “Hannes is very committed to this, I can only praise him very highly. A change in the starting number rule would be cool, I hope something will happen. The sport must be well presented in the media, but it should still be fair,” said Matthias Mayer, the Super G Olympic champion of Pyeongchang in Cyprus.

Reichelt also hopes that things will continue clearly in terms of security. “Too little has happened in recent years. Let’s hope we can make the sport even safer in the future.” Team mate Mayer referred to the airbag system as a step in the right direction, but at the same time other things would not have fit so well. “I remember my fall at the Olympics in combined slalom, where a drill and people were in the way. I hope you learn from these things.”

Vincent Kriechmayr also relies on Reichelt’s gift for argumentation. “We’ve found the best man in Hannes, he’s going to work hard for our interests. I take a positive view, we should have a bit of a voting right. In Kvitfjell we discussed a few points, we were very unanimous. I hope that this will have some weight at the congress, because we are the athletes who have to run over the mountain,” said the winner of the downhill and Super-G at the World Cup final in March in Aare.