Great acclaim for the Crans-Montana/Valais 2025 project

Marius Robyr, the executive director of the Crans-Montana/Valais bid committee for the Ski World Championships in 2025, presented the project to the population of Valais on Wednesday evening. A project which was extremely well-received. Over 300 people accepted the invitation from Marius Robyr on Wednesday evening. The local population was invited to Le Régent in Crans-Montana to hear details of the Crans-Montana/Valais 2025 candidature project, which will be presented to the FIS in May, aiming to obtain the organisation of the Alpine Ski World Championships in 2025.

A huge challenge

After a welcome speech by David Bagnoud, president of the Crans-Montana Association of Communes (ACCM), and president of Lens, Marius Robyr, executive director for the candidature, presented all the aspects of this huge project. The objectives of the evening - to inform and inspire the population of Valais - were definitely met, thanks to an enthusiastic presentation which was greeted with loud applause from the audience. 

Several notions that are important to the bid committee were central in the speech: authenticity, youth, sustainability, emotion and passion.  It shouldn’t be forgotten that Crans-Montana has a long tradition of alpine racing dating back to 1911, and organised the 1987 World Championships with brio and pride on its Mont Lachaux and Nationale pistes.

Considerable support

In order to host this celebration of global skiing once again, the considerable budget for organisation amounts to some 77 million francs. For the event, the Haut-Plateau resort is going to build a completely modernised multi-purpose finish stadium, as well as offering more hotel infrastructure and also increasing the capacity of parking and also the Violettes ski lift. Due to the size of the project, the bid committee can count on support from the Haut-Plateau communes, the canton of Valais, the Confederation and Swiss-Ski, via the president Urs Lehmann, who is also vice-president for the bid committee. Philippe P. Magistretti, president of the CMA board of directors, the Valais state councillor Frédéric Favre, Sandra Felix, vice director of the Federal Office of Sport, and Nicolas Féraud, president of the Crans Montana community and also the bid itself, also spoke in support of Crans-Montana/Valais 2025.

Despite his enthusiasm, Marius Robyr hasn’t forgotten the reality on the ground. He pointed out that the path towards election of the host resort at the FIS congress, which is being held in Thailand between 18 and 23 May, is still a long one. Hugo Steinegger, vice-director of the bid and coordinator of the delegation that will be travelling to the congress, is also more than aware of this. He will be doing everything possible to ensure that at Royal Cliff, the Valais presentation will be a memorable one. The Crans-Montana/Valais 2025 bid is considered an outsider against Germany’s Garmisch-Partenkirchen and especially against the Austrian candidate, Saalbach.

DEPREZphoto, cransmontana

Marius Robyr, executivedirectorof the 2025 Crans-Montana/Valais Bid Committee

David Bagnoud, president of the Crans-Montana Association of Communes and president of the commune of Lens

The public out in force , some 300 people

Philippe P. Magistretti, president of the CMA lift company board of directors

Frédéric Favre, State Councillor for the canton of Valais

Sandra Felix, vice-director of the Federal Office of Sport

Nicolas Féraud, president of the Crans-Montana commune and president of the Bid Committee

All together: from left Claude-Alain Schmidhalter, Vice-President of Swiss-Ski, Marius Robyr, Frédéric Favre, Sandra Felix and Nicolas Féraud (David Bagnoud and Philippe Magistretti, unfortunately missing due to other engagements)

  Video (in French only): Johan Tachet/SkiActu

 Video (in French only): Keystone-ats