Everybody agreed that the inaugural Tour was a success and that the basic idea works. For the second edition, the FIS Cross-Country Committee, led by Chairman Vegard Ulvang, reviewed the rules and made some adaptations at the FIS calendar meeting in Portoroz (SLO) in May. A summary of the most important rules amendments follows:
Newly introduced will be the Tour Team Cup — a team scoring. In each Stage, the racing results (time score) of the two best ladies and two best men per nation will count for the Team Cup.
To provide the sprinters with additional opportunities, the new Tour rules include increased Bonus Seconds. This means that the winners of the sprint races will receive a time bonus of 60 (rather than 50) seconds. The second placed will get -56 seconds, the third -52 seconds and so on until the 30th ranked athlete will earn -1 second. Moreover, additional intermediate sprints are included in this year's Tour de Ski in three distance races (both competitions in Oberstdorf, one in Val di Fiemme).
Another novelty in the rules is that if a racer loses by more than 18% (ladies)/ 15% (men) compared in an individual start race, she or he is excluded from the rest of the Tour. Lapping and skipping a race will also lead to exclusion.
In total, one million Swiss francs will be awarded to the most successful athletes, the King and Queen of Cross-Country, the winners of the Sprint Ranking and the daily Stage winners. In the first edition of the Tour, the prize money was reduced due to the cancellation of the first two races.
For the World Cup, the top 15 athletes will get half of the normal World Cup points for each Stage provided the athlete finishes the Tour, and in the end the winners will get 400 (4 x 100) World Cup points – the same as last year. This means that if one athlete wins all races and the overall Tour ranking, they will receive 800 World Cup points.
2005 World Champion Vincent Vittoz had this to say about the Tour –
“The first edition of the Tour de Ski was a great experience. Judging by the interest shown by the media and the public, this new event will be very positive for Cross-Country Skiing. The transfers between locations add a new dimension that can be hard to manage and that can impede on the racers' recovery time. It was also noted that in order to be competitive for the final ranking, a racer's shape and equipment (skis/wax) had to be optimum for every race. This is where I did not perform well enough last year. I hope we will be able to learn from our mistakes in order to achieve my main goal which is to earn a top ranking at the Tour.â€
Vittoz ended up 19th overall in last year's Tour while winning the pursuit in Oberstdorf, Germany.
Source: FIS
