LONG-AWAITED SNOW WHITENED VAL DI FIEMME FIS TOUR DE SKI READY FOR THE WEEKEND
A few days left to the eventual FIS Viessmann Tour de Ski chapter
Val di Fiemme (Italy) in white to welcome cross country superstars
New Cross Country Stadium and tracks perfectly whitened
Majdic, Hjelmeset and Alsgaard at the start of the ‘Rampa con i Campioni’ event
The 2012 Viessmann FIS Tour de Ski has successfully landed in Italy yesterday, and after the competitions scheduled in Dobbiaco and Cortina (until Thu 5 January), it will move towards Val di Fiemme in Trentino region, next Saturday and Sunday.
In the last couple of days, the long-awaited snow finally whitened the North-eastern part of Italy and Val di Fiemme woke up yesterday morning with 8 inches of fresh flurry snow down in the valley and at least double than that up in the mountains. Tracks are now in perfect conditions, also thanks to this pleasant snowfall, but most importantly, tracks have been renewed this year in view of the 2013 Nordic World Ski Championships and are now ready to welcome the classic technique specialists on Saturday (Men’s 20k at 12.30pm – Women’s 10k at 3.45pm).
An almost brand new stadium will be welcoming also thousands of spectators of any age who will enjoy a sensational event, thanks to new stalls and underground passages too, that will make way more pleasant and visible both the competitions. Everyone can enter the stadium free of charge and easily walk along the tracks. After the start (Mass start), competitors will face seven brief but intense uphill stretches where everything could happen.
FIS management board and Tour de Ski inventors Jürg Capol and Vegard Ulvang cannot but be satisfied on the work done in Val di Fiemme, where the final legs of the series have always taken place and will be hosted until 2017. While Ulvang has recently come back from a trip (over 1.300k skiing) to the South Pole, which celebrated 100 years since Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen led the first expedition to the Antarctic continent, FIS Race Director XC Capol will be joining the 2nd edition of the promo FT race ‘Rampa con i Campioni’, on Sunday 8 January along the Final Climb uphill.
Among the big names at the start of 2012 Rampa con i Campioni, there are Slovenian super star Petra Majdic, the multi-Olympic and World Championship gold medal winner Thomas Alsgaard and his countryman Odd-Bjørn Hjelmeset, five times world champion between 2001 and 2009 and gold at the 20k CT Tour de Ski race in Val di Fiemme in 2008. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, cause the list reads also Italy’s Relay gold medallist at the 2006 Winter Olympics Fulvio Valbusa, 1999 World Champion Alois Stadlober and former ski jumping World Champion Andreas Goldberger, both from Austria, German Peter Schlickenrieder, Markus Hasler of Liechtenstein and Katerina Neumannova of Czech Republic.
Rampa’s starting list reads skiers from Italy, Austria, Norway, Russia and Sweden, among others, and this event represents a chance for professional skiers and simple cross country lovers to enjoy the magic atmosphere of one of the most incredible tracks in the world, the Final Climb on the Alpe Cermis.
One of the many side events scheduled during the Viessmann FIS Tour de Ski weekend in Val di Fiemme is the brand new Kids Event, a promotional and non-competitive cross-country race dedicated to Under15 kids only, a gymkhana-like game event in classical technique, at the renewed Cross-Country Stadium in Lago di Tesero. The Kids Event has been taking place for years in other worldly famous places such as Oslo, Davos, Lahti or Falun, and represents an opportunity to let young people move closer to XC skiing in a playful manner.
Info: www.fiemme2013.com