The new Holmenkollen ready for FIS World Cup Final

FasterSkier · March 11, 2010

The FIS Nordic World Cup Holmenkollen in Oslo, Norway, will be held on 13rd-14th March 2010. Most of the ultra-modern new Holmenkollen National Arena will be in use for the first time. The year-round facility will not only host the traditional Holmenkollen Ski Festival for years to come, but also offer a landmark location for children, young people, professionals and the general public to practice Nordic ski sports.

“We are looking forward to welcoming both athletes and spectators to the new Holmenkollen National Arena, which includes a brand new ski stadium, new cross-country tracks and the new spectacular Holmenkollbakken jumping hill. It will be an historical World Cup week-end. All the top athletes are attending, the weather forecast is good and we have seen great interest for ticket sales”, says Åsne Havnelid, CEO of Ski-VM Oslo 2011 AS.

There will be two full days packed with events – seven competitions in the FIS Nordic disciplines including ski jumping on the spectacular new Holmenkollen hill on both Saturday and Sunday. As tradition dictates, several of the Norwegian royal family will also be in attendance.

For the Bauhaus FIS Ski Jumping World Cup and the DKB FIS Nordic Combined World Cup, the Oslo weekend represents the culmination of the FIS World Cup season. With two competitions to go, the Ski Jumping crystal globe has not yet been decided although the two-time double Olympic champion Simon Ammann (SUI) has established a solid lead over Austrian challenger Gregor Schlierenzauer. Thanks to his back-to-back post-Olympic wins in Finland (Lahti & Kuopio), Ammann leads by 183 points.

The overall victory in the DKB FIS Nordic Combined World Cup is clear since the Lahti Ski Games last weekend: French Olympic champion Jason Lamy-Chappuis has already confirmed his victory before the final two events on Holmenkollen. In the Viessmann FIS Cross-Country World Cup there are still four races and 650 points to go, including the three-stage World Cup Final in Falun (SWE) that counts as one event.

This weekend’s competitions at Holmenkollen also serve as the main test event for the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships from 24 February to 6 March 2011, when Oslo will be at the centre of attention as the world capital of winter sports. The upcoming World Cups will go ahead in Holmenkollen as planned, even though the facility is not completely finished yet. Parts of the interior facade of the ski jumping hill have not been fitted, some buildings are not totally finished and some facilities are temporary. The landscaping work and planting in the venue will not be done until summer 2010. However, none of this is expected to distract from the overall experience, which will be historic and quite spectacular.

370 athletes from 24 nation have registered to compete.”We are very happy with the number of entries. We had expected that the interest may been reduced after the Olympic Games but in fact the number of registered athletes is more than in normal years when we have had 250-300 racers on Holmenkollen,” said Lasse Ottesen, Sports Director of Oslo 2011.

Source: FIS