Opinions & Interviews

This season the Lake Placid Freestyle Cup and the Freestyle Aerials World Cup in Sierra Nevada were cancelled due to the insufficient amount of snow. The Raubichi event organizers were also concerned about the weather as the temperatures were hovering above zero. But they assure that all will go well on 20 February.

"It is a great honor for the Belarusian Ski Union to host the final, sixth FIS World Cup where all world cup winners will become known. There was also a spell of warm weather in the middle of winter in Belarus. We had to re-snow the slope, and for that we express our special thanks to Belarusian State University of Physical Education who helped prepare Raubichi for the event. We and representatives of the International Ski Federation are discussing the issue of making Raubichi the permanent venue of the world d cup. For this purpose we need to remove some shortcomings, particularly technical ones regarding the preparation of the slope,” Leonid Chashchin said.

Belarus freestyle skiing coach Nikolai Kozeko also believes that Belarus Sports and Tourism Ministry and the Belarusian Ski Union will do their best “to ensure the modern methods of hosting such high-level tournaments.” In his opinion, the Sixth World Cup in Raubichi will have an interesting competitive part. Competition is now tough for the placements in the world cup overall standings and the event on 20 February will be crucial for many ski aerialists. "The host country will field the strongest possible team, with the exception of Dennis Osipov who sustained injury in the United States,” said Nikolai Kozeko.

This is not the first time that Raubichi has become the venue of a FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup. This year the Raubichi will host about 60 athletes from 11 states: Australia, Belarus, the UK, Kazakhstan, Canada, China, Russia, the United States, Ukraine, Japan and Switzerland. The event will start with the qualifications at 9:40. The finals are scheduled for 20 February at 14:00.

More than 80 journalists have been accredited to cover the event.