With ladies’ Ski Jumping new on the programme of
the Olympic Winter Games, the discipline is gearing
up for an exciting future. FIS ladies’ Ski Jumping
Race Director Chika Yoshida sat down with FIS Newsflash
to talk about the next season.
What will be new for ladies' Ski Jumping in the
upcoming winter?
In our summer season we've already welcomed a new
Organiser with Nizhniy Tagil (RUS) and it will continue
in this vein in winter.
We will start our season with the traditional locations,
Lillehammer (NOR) and Hinterzarten (GER) but then
we move on to new hills such Chaikovsky (RUS) in
January and Rasnov (ROU) after the Olympic Games.
The Organisers are very motivated to host ladies'
World Cup events.
During the recent FIS Technical Autumn Meetings
in Zurich, the Ski Jumping Committee also confirmed
that there will be an additional large hill competition
in Planica (SLO) where the season finals will be
held. Planica is already a very traditional venue
for the men's World Cup. Overall, there will be
two events on the large hill for the ladies this
season.
What can the fans especially look forward to?
This will be the third World Cup season for the
ladies and many fans have already become familiar
with the athletes' names and faces and know the
favourites. This makes it more interesting to follow
our competitions. 2013/14 is the first Olympic season
for the ladies and it will be very exciting in this
aspect.
As it will be the first time the ladies compete
at Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, you must be very
excited, just like the athletes, or will this just
be a competition like the others for you?
The competition and the sport itself is the same
as in any other World Cup. On the other hand it
will be a historic moment for ladies' Ski Jumping.
The ladies will receive Olympic medals for the first
time ever and viewers and fans from all over the
world will watch this competition. This will be
something special and therefore I'm really excited.
I am sure that the impact of this big event could
influence the future of our sport.
The interest in ladies' Ski Jumping increased enormously
over the past years. What effect does this have
on the competitions and the general environment
of the sport?
Of course it helps to raise the level of ladies'
Ski Jumping in general, concerning the TV production,
the organisation of World Cup events and so on.
The quality of ladies' World Cup competitions has
definitely improved since the start of the series.
There is no doubt that ladies' Ski Jumping is an
attractive sport, however the number of competitors
is still relatively small compared to the men's
events. I am hoping the effect will be that we will
be able to increase the number of competitors from
year to year.