The Swiss resort of St. Moritz has held off competition from Sweden’s Are to land the 2017 Alpine World Ski Championships.
St. Moritz’s victory was announced at the International Ski Federation’s (FIS) Congress in Kangwonland, Korea on Thursday. The field for the 2017 Championships was shortened before the vote as Italy’s Cortina d’Ampezzo withdrew its bid. St. Moritz and Cortina were both bidding for the third consecutive time, with the former having last hosted the Championships in 2003. The FIS announced that St. Moritz secured an absolute majority in the first ballot against Are.
Cortina’s bid committee stated that it withdrew its bid following the realisation that it would not succeed owing to the “unwritten rule” of rotating the FIS events between member federations. Officials said they would now concentrate on landing the next edition of the Championships in 2019. Flavio Roda, Italian Ski Federation president and vice-president of the Cortina 2017 bidding committee, said: “I can only underline what I have written to (FIS) president (Gian Franco) Kasper. In order to set the right base for the future sometimes hard decisions need to be taken.”
Roda added: “Bidding successfully for hosting the 2019 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships has a top priority for the Italian Ski Federation within the next two years. FISI, after having faced difficult time will now fully concentrate on the Cortina 2019 bid. I am sure that the next attempt for 2019 together with the municipality of Cortina d’Ampezzo, the Veneto Region as well as all partners, in particular the ‘Banca Popolare di Vicenza’ and its president Gianni Zonin, will be a successful one.”
The German resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen staged the last edition of the Alpine World Championships in 2011. The biennial event will travel to Schladming (Austria) and Vail/Beaver Creek (United States) before returning to St. Moritz.
In other hosting news, Kulm (Austria) and Sierra Nevada (Spain) were unanimously elected as hosts of the 2016 Ski Flying World Championships and joint 2017 Freestyle Ski & Snowboard World Championships, respectively. The Nordic World Ski Championships will be hosted by Lahti (Finland), which defeated Planica (Slovenia) in a third round of voting.
