Season's Greetings

Media Information

Season’s Greetings  

Lausanne, 23 December 2022 – With the year about to come to an end, the ISMF President would like to do a summary of the multiple activities in which the ISMF Council and herself have been involved in the last month, with the clear goal of growing the presence of our sport and give more visibility to all our athletes.

Early December, the ISMF President Regula Meier and the Secretary General Jordi Canals had the opportunity to participate in Lausanne on the Sport Accord IF Forum-2022, as well as the Association of International Olympic Winter Federations General Assembly. It is very important for our organization to be part of such important meetings, as topics such as Safe Sport, Sustainability, Human Rights, Operations and Management best practices are discussed between all International Federations, as is great to learn from the previous experience of other sports and IFs how we can make our sport more relevant within the Olympic Movement.

The ISMF Secretary General travelled to Milano in December to participate on the meetings onsite of The International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s Coordination Commission for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games  Milano Cortina 2026, in which we had the opportunity to discuss with the attendants including the new CEO  of Milano Cortina 2026 the latest developments of the event, our venue, schedule and participated in multiple discussions regarding broadcasting, accreditation and venue plans. We can proudly say that we are on track for our debut at the Olympics! Even though, of course, there’s a lot of work ahead and we need to focus all on delivering the best event, which will give our athletes and our events the maximum visibility that we can get.

On December 15 we had the last Council meeting of the year, to review the season ahead and discuss our broadcasting plans for the next years, once again with the goal in mind of maximizing the exposure of our sport.

The ISMF Council approved as well the creation of a Working Group to put in place the qualification system for the Milano Cortina 2026 , with our Sport Manager Josef Gruber named the Chair of the Working Group. Oriol Montero will the Referees representative; Marianne Faton the athlete representative; Thierry Galindo the coaches representative and Jeremy Arnold. Ramone Cooper, Urs Stöcker, Roberto Cavallo and Olivier Mansiot will be advisors of the group, without voting rights.

Last weekend, we saw another magnificent event in Ponte di Legno, the second stage of the Würth Modyf ISMF World Cup circuit, with a magnificent (and rainy) Sprint event plus the first Individual race of the season. It was also great to see more countries joining our events, as we welcomed a few participants from Canada, Sweden and China in Ponte di Legno, with a total of 18 nations competing last weekend, from three continents.

We had the opportunity to see a delegation of athletes from China that were able to participate in the World Cup, and are now located in Italy where they will be training for Morgins WC, Youth World Cup and the Boi Taull World Championships.

The year has been long, and the season ahead will be even more challenging, with new events making their debut in our calendar, and with our younger athletes -the future stars of our sport- showcasing skimo at its best at the European Youth Olympic Festival in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, and at the Youth World Cup circuit that will make its debut in February.

While the season ahead will be long and challenging, we don’t want to lose the opportunity of wishing you all a very happy new year full of snow. Enjoy the Festive Season!

About the ISMF

Founded in 2007, the International Ski Mountaineering Federation ISMF is the global governing body for ski mountaineering competitions. Since 2016, the organization is officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee IOC. Its main goals are the promotion, regulation and development of the ski mountaineering sport worldwide. Based in Lausanne, Switzerland, the ISMF’s membership consists of 44 national mountaineering or ski sports federations in Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. The ISMF organizes ski mountaineering World Cups events and World Championships. For the first time, ski mountaineering has been a medal sport at the 2020 Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne, Switzerland, and has recently been included in the programme of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026.

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