This week, FIS and POCOG, the Korean Olympic Organising Committee announced the winners of the cross and slope style course design and build competition for the 2016 FIS Freestyle Skiing and Snowboarding World Cups to be held in Bokwang Snow Park.
White Industries of Whistler, Canada was selected for the cross competitions and Schneestern of Durach, Germany was selected for the slope style courses.
There were 12 companies that were invited to make bids for this work of designing the courses and then building the competition tracks. 6 companies were shortlisted, which included Arena Snowparks of Canada, Snow Park Technologies of the United States, Cardrona Snowparks of New Zealand, Snowpark Consulting of Sweden and they all attended the mid-September inspection in Korea.
These companies then were asked to provide detailed conceptual designs for the courses. In the end, there were 2 companies that bid for the cross courses and 3 companies that bid for the slopestyle competitions.
Freestyle Skiing Coordinator Joe Fitzgerald stated: “We wanted to support a system and a process that allowed the best companies in the world to become associated with perhaps the greatest winter sports competition, the Olympic Winter Games. These globally based companies pulled out all the stops and created fantastic conceptual designs using the latest 3-D and animation software.”
Uwe Beier, Snowboard Race Director added: “It was a very tightly fought competition given the professional proposals and extensive background that the companies have in terms of building up snow parks and competition courses around the world.”
Jeff Ihaksi White industries Limited, who built the 1st Olympic snowboard cross course for Torino 2006 and also at the Vancouver 2010 ski and snowboard cross stated: “We are excited and feel privileged to have the opportunity to work with the Pyeongchang Organising Committee, FIS and the resort team. Our goal is for a great experience for everyone involved.”
Dirk Scheumann Schneestern Management GmbH indicated: “My Team and I are very delighted. It was a lot of fun working on the application and we want to thank everyone involved. Thank you very much for your trust. We are looking forward to the challenge and to the next steps.”
Finally, Yeon Chae, POCOG Sport Manager, underlined: “Our Freestyle Skiing and Snowboarding sports department would like to thank all those companies that took their time and energy to support our World Cup and the upcoming Olympic Winter Games. From what we've seen, we will have some great competitions this winter.”
The organisation and setup for the rest of the World Cup test competitions, in moguls, aerials, halfpipe, parallel and now big air will occur in season 2016/17.
Source: fis-ski.com
