Water skiing would make more sense than novelty events at Winter Games, says FIS chief Eliasch
(Fixes typo in paragraph 2)
By Julien Pretot
PARIS, Jan 6 : International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) president Johan Eliasch warned that the Winter Olympics should not be diluted with novelty events, saying the Games must remain rooted in snow and ice — even joking that water skiing would make more sense than some recent proposals.
“I saw some videos of bicycles doing slalom in a slalom course,” Eliasch told Reuters. “Sure, you can invent anything, but quite frankly, water skiing would have more to do with the Olympic Winter Games than this. At least it’s sliding, and it’s ski, right?”
The International Cycling Union (UCI) has been campaigning for the addition of cyclocross, a sport where races are often contested in brutal weather and sometimes snow, to the 2030 Winter Games programme in the French Alps.
Eliasch said straying too far from the Winter Games’ core identity risks weakening their appeal rather than broadening it.
“What is so important — and I have been developing brands and formats my entire life — is that if you’re not true to your brand and your brand identity, the appreciation of the brand goes downhill,” he said.
“We are snow and ice. It’s even in the Olympic Charter,” Eliasch added. “I’m not saying here that we shouldn’t be open to all possibilities, but clearly what we should focus on first is to make sure that we have the best athletes with the best performance of the best sports. It’s quality, not quantity. Quantity will not sell the Winter Games.”
He said the Olympic movement already struggles to guarantee elite-level competition in some sports.
“We have issues, for instance, in ice hockey. We don’t have the best ice hockey players because of the situation here with the NHL,” Eliasch said. “The same with football. There’s another good example where we don’t have the best football players.”
For Eliasch, the priority must be delivering excellence to viewers and spectators.
“For the Olympic movement, it is really important to make sure that we have the highest quality of what you see on the screen or you see as a spectator,” he said. “The highest quality — that is the best venues, the best fan experience.”
He added that winter sports must also think beyond the Olympic fortnight.
“It is also super important to focus on how we are not only relevant two weeks every two years but how we can be relevant to Olympic fans every day, every week,” Eliasch said.
