Last Sunday the 19th, the Andorra 2023 Alpine Ski World Cup Finals closed. A week-long event that has served to crown the champions of all world alpine ski disciplines. The kick-off on Monday, with a markedly family-oriented inauguration, in line with the objectives of attracting the little ones to the world of skiing, was followed by some exciting races where the great masters of skiing demonstrated their extraordinary quality, scoring the most relevant victories and adding their names to the list of winners of the Àliga and Avet slopes.
In the sports field, Mikaela Shiffrin has completed a season of records: 88 victories in the World Cup, 21 in giant slalom and has reached her maximum points in a season with 2,206. In the Andorra Finals, the American won the giant slalom race, and took the crystal globe of the general classification, in addition to those of slalom and giant.
In the SuperG race, Lara Gut’s victory helped her to turn around the general classification of the specialty and take the globe to Switzerland. In descent, the Slovenian Ilka Stuhec prevailed over the Italian SofÃa Goggia, who arrived with the balloon of the specialty secured. In slalom, the Slovakian Petra Vlhova took the victory ahead of the Croatian Leona Popovic and Mikaela Shiffrin, who already had the specialty balloon secured.
In the men’s category, Marco Odermatt made good predictions and took the giant with indisputable authority, in a test where the Andorran and local hero Joan Verdú achieved a historic 15th overall position and 6th in the second round. Odermatt had already won the super G test, winning the overall, giant and super G balloons. The drop went to the Austrian Kriechmayr and the balloon to the Norwegian Aamodt-Kilde. The slalom came to Andorra with everything to decide, with two Norwegians and two Swiss with options. The race did not disappoint and Lucas Braathen won the race and took the balloon to Norway.
In the organizational field, the praise received by all the parties involved leaves no doubt about the organizational capacity of Grandvalira to host top-level events in Andorra. The FIS praised the work of Grandvalira and the FIS General Secretary, Michel Vion, assured that the Andorra 2023 Finals “have even exceeded the expectations we had when we decided to return”.
“It has been a formidable week, each day with a challenge, with very good competitions and a very good atmosphere: they have done a very good job,” he assured. Regarding the bid for the 2029 World Championships, Vion said that the Finals have been “the best occasion to show what they are capable of doing”, and encouraged the station to “keep progressing and be prepared”, as they it is an event “10 times bigger than a Finalsâ€.
Markus Waldner, director of the men’s World Cup, stated that “you can be very proud because once again the organizing committee has shown that it can carry out events of the highest level”, and added that “it has all the right cards to win Championships of the world”. In fact, Waldner praised not only the hospitality, “where he has set the bar really high”, but also the layout of the slopes and the professionalism of the technical team and each of the volunteers, “who, despite the challenges he has Given the weather, they have prepared some truly top-level racesâ€.
For his part, the acting head of the Government, Xavier Espot, valued “once again the capacity for organization and hospitality”, gave special thanks to the volunteers and was happy to “do our bit from the Government to make this event possible, which has an enormous economic, social and media impactâ€.
It should be noted that the full sign was posted every day of the competitions, during which almost 30,000 people passed through the Àliga and Avet slopes, highlighting the weekend with 7,000 people a day, in a demonstration of the response that society has had Andorran towards a sport as important as skiing.
The village that was installed at the foot of the Avet de Soldeu slope was the point of entertainment during the weekend, with activities of all kinds: musicals, children’s, sports, leisure and gastronomy. These activities served to anticipate what can be outlined by a two-week ski festival during the 2029 World Cups if Andorra is chosen.
During the week, organizers of world cup events from all over (Val Gardena, Saalbach, Adelboden, Courchevel-Meribel, Kvitfjell, Narvik, Kronplatz, Cortina de Ampezo…) were able to see first-hand Andorran organizational excellence and gave very positive feedback on your experience.
It has been a very intense week of competitions, animations and emotions, where the organization has worked like clockwork and they have been unanimously rated as the best world cup finals held so far. This success should be the basis for achieving the goal of being chosen to host the 2029 World Championships. Andorra is prepared and has shown it in the best possible showcase.
Many thanks to all those who have made this collective success possible.
