Congratulations to my friends at The Hahnenkammrennen in Kitzbühel for winning the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Organizer Award for the best race week on the World Cup circuit.
The FIS OC Award is based on evaluations of each Organizer by key stakeholder groups of the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup ranging from the athletes to team captains and representatives of the print and photographic media and broadcasters.
Here is my personal take on this:
In 26 years in professional sports production, the HKR is the best event I've ever been involved with. Hands down. Their "secret" is this: In addition to a whole lot of smart and dedicated people, they're all skiers.
Duh.
Not as simple as it sounds.
As events grow and mature, the organizations running them tend to lose the hard-core tennis players, runners, drivers (or whatever) who got the event rolling in the first place. A certain amount of professional management is necessary as events grow beyond a certain point, but as soon as (for example) the US Open brings in a guy from The Rockettes to run things, or US Beach Volleyball brings in a tennis promoter to run things, that's when everything goes to hell.
I'm actually surprised the presenters were able to assemble a bunch of the Kitzbühel guys for the above photo. Must have been at night. If it were during the day, they would have all been out skiing.
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