Crans Montana Announces 2025 World Championship Bid

Swiss-Ski, Crans-Montana, and the canton of Valais have submitted the candidacy of Crans-Montana for the World Ski Championships 2025 on Tuesday at the headquarters of the World Federation FIS in Oberhofen am Thunersee, Switzerland.

With the handing over of a check for the entry fee, which amounts to 400,000 Swiss Francs at the first application, as well as the additional assurance for 200 sponsored training days, which the FIS smaller nations will offer, the World Championship candidature of Swiss Ski and Crans-Montana/Wallis 2025 was made official.

Present in the Bernese Oberland were FIS President Gian Franco Kasper, Valais State Councilor Frédéric Favre, Matthias Remund, Director of the Federal Office of Sport, Yves-Roger Rey, Secretary General of Crans-Montana, and Swiss-Ski President Urs Lehmann , who is also Vice President of the World Cup Candidacy Committee, and Swiss Ski CEO Markus Wolf.

“Switzerland is one of the most traditional alpine countries, and we are fighting to get the World Cup back in 2025,” said Lehmann.

The promoters of the candidature of Valais now have three months to return a questionnaire of about 80 pages to the FIS. In autumn, an FIS evaluation commission will examine and verify the information on site in Crans-Montana. Afterwards, candidacy director Marius Robyr and his team will have a few months to clarify remaining issues and questions. Finally, in the spring of 2020, the recommendation will be sent to the election committee, the 17-member FIS executive board. The 2025 World Cup will be awarded in May 2020 in Pattaya, Thailand.

Saalbach-Hinterglemm, Austria, is also running for the 2025 World Cup. The Austrians were defeated with the application for 2023 of the French candidacy Courchevel-Méribel.

“We at Crans-Montana/Wallis 2025 are not the favorites, but we’ve made a name for ourselves at FIS and we’ll do our best to win this big event, if not 2025 then 2027,” said Robyr.

Crans-Montana has hosted the World Ski Championships 1987. In the last twelve years almost every year World Cup and European Cup races took place there. In 2009, Crans-Montana organized the World Cup Final and two years later the Junior World Championships. In recent years, the race tracks have been expanded at the cost of around 20 million Francs. There are separate routes for men and women’s races. At the World Championships, they will end in a common target stadium still to be built.

Release courtesy of Swiss Ski.