FIS President Gian Franco Kasper met with some journalists on Saturday morning at the Audi FIS Alpine Ski Champions Cup venue in Moscow (RUS).
"It has been an excellent initiative by the Russian Ski Association to stage this exceptional event here in Moscow. The Audi FIS Alpine Ski Champions Cup brings the best slalom skiers of the world into the heart of the Russian capital. The huge ramp here in Moscow is unique and it is not possible to build such ramps everywhere, for reasons such as snow availability as well as wind, because the safety of the athletes remains a primary concern for FIS.
However, for FIS it is very important to bring our athletes and our sport to where the public is. Bring them away from the mountains to cities is truly excellent promotion for our sport.
I thank and congratulate the Moscow organizing committee for the success of this 2nd edition. We all know that this year it was not easy to prepare the ramp given the unseasonably warm weather and rain earlier this week. We even came close to having to cancel the event but clearly the hard work of the dozens of volunteers this week has paid off and the ramp is in a good condition.
In the future, FIS would like to have a few of such events, maybe in cities such as Paris or London as well as Moscow. We think that these types of events must not be too many so they remain something special but think that a couple would serve as great promotion for our sport.
We know that the design of the ramp is now available to be ‘lent' to other cities from the Russian designers. So why not use it elsewhere too?"
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