Industry News
The Italian ski area Val Gardena/Gröden has lodged its formal application to host the 2029 FIS Alpine World Championships. The FIS World Championships are held every two years in the various FIS disciplines. The last World Championships were this year, with Courchevel and Méribél, France, being hosts of the Alpine World Championships, while Planica, Slovenia, hosted this year’s Cross-Country World Championships and Bakuriani, Georgia, held the Freestyle events.
Similar to the Olympics, the appointment of the host for the next World Championships is made several years in advance. While the hosts for 2025 and 2027 have been decided, the decision for 2029 hosts will not be made until next year at the 55th FIS-congress which will be held on June 4, 2024, in Reykjavik, Iceland.
In May this year the International Ski & Snowboard Federation (‘FIS’) had received three initial bids for the 2029 Alpine World Championships by Narvik in Norway, Soldeu in Andorra, and Val Gardena/Gröden in Italy. Norway has never hosted an Alpine World Championship except in 1952 when World Championships were part of the Winter Olympics, and Oslo hosted the Olympics. Soldeu, Andorra, held this past season’s World Cup Finals but has never held a World Championship. Both countries have made bids before but were unsuccessful in securing the Alpine World Ski Championships. Val Gardena is a first-time candidate, but Italy has held six World Championships, most recently in 2021 in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
As the next step in the selection process, each candidate has to submit a detailed concept for their bid by today, August 1, 2023. The concept plan is based on a specific FIS questionnaire and covers essential elements, such as venues and facilities, workforce and volunteers, sustainability, transportation, security, organization structure, and financing. After receiving these formal concepts, meetings will be held with representatives of each candidate, giving candidates time to amend their final formal bid. In April 2024, these will be published and distributed to the National Ski Associations, Technical Committee chairs, and the FIS Council. The FIS Council will elect the winning bid in June.
A team of eight specialists prepared the application for Val Gardena/Gröden and officials have confirmed that the bid for the Italian ski area was submitted yesterday, a day ahead of the deadline. The application file took more than a year to prepare and consists of more than 200 pages of information, including pictures, tables and charts. The application has the support of all relevant political, scientific and humanitarian institutions, who will be required to support the event. The Italian ski association ‘FISI’ is one of the most important institutions supporting the bid.
We await formal confirmation that Narvik and Soldeu also submitted their formal concept by close of business today.
