"Our sport is in danger", warns a letter prepared by the Protect Our Winters (POW) association and signed by 142 skiers from different disciplines (alpine skiing, freestyle, freeride), including stars Mikaela Shiffrin, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Federica Brignone.
The document was symbolically handed over to the FIS in Courchevel, a few hours after the men's downhill of the Alpine Skiing World Championships.
"More and more competitions are canceled due to lack of snow (...) soon it will no longer be possible to produce artificial snow on several usual World Cup sites given the increase in temperatures", warn the skiers.
The letter asks the FIS to adjust its calendar, in order to reduce intercontinental travel (the Alpine circuit is stopping off on two different occasions this season in North America) and to delay the start of competitions.
Several races scheduled for late October and November 2022 have been canceled due to lack of snow.
The athletes also demand that the FIS commitment made in 2021 to halve its carbon footprint be followed by a concrete plan "made public before the start of next season", and demand from the body a "total transparency".
The FIS announced at the end of 2021 that it wanted to become the first "carbon-positive" international federation thanks to a program to protect virgin forests in the Amazon.
A project that should ideally remain annexed according to POW, for whom the priority should be to “reduce current emissions”.
"It is high time to address this very important subject. We see that the world is changing, we also see the impact that this has on our sport", commented Kilde, in the wake of his silver medal obtained during the lowering.
"I want to keep doing what I love, we have to do our best to keep it going, but I also want future generations to be able to do it, he said. It's a great letter that addresses something we have to keep in mind all our lives."
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