The jackpot grew, the new vest divides opinion – read here what you need to know about this year’s Tour de Ski | Sport

This year the Tour de Ski will be held only in Italy. For the Tour, changes have been made to the familiar colors of the race leaders’ vests and a completely new one has been introduced.

The turn of the year is always one of the most interesting times of the season in winter sports, and for good reason. Both the cross-country Tour de Ski and the Central European Hill Week will be contested from Saturday, December 28.

Exceptionally, the Tour de Ski is contested in only two locations, Italy’s Toblach and Val di Fiemme. The tour starts on December 28 with the Toblach freestyle sprints.

Last year, Switzerland’s Davos was part of the Tour. In previous years, the tour has also competed in the Czech Republic and Germany.

As usual, the Tour de Ski culminates with the final ascent of the Olimpia ski slope of Alpe Cermis on January 5.

A total of 11 Finnish skiers, six men and five women, will be seen at the Tour.

With the colors of the vest, more towards cycling competitions

The Tour de Ski will also see new things in its 19th edition.

The international skiing federation FIS has tried to make the Tour one step at a time closer to the big cycling races in terms of the vest system. This is also natural, as the ski tour is inspired by the world’s most prestigious road cycling race, the Tour de France.

This year, the Tour de Ski will feature three different leader vests:

It is only the second time in the history of the Tour that the number one in the overall race wears a gold vest instead of a red one.

The purple bib or “climbing leader bib” (FIS’s English term “Climbing leader bib”) is a completely new addition to the tour. During the races, the skiers who climb the highest point of the race courses the fastest collect points in this internal race of the tour. Purple was chosen as the color of the Mäkikisa leader’s vest based on public voting.

You can see the vest options of the public vote on FIS’s Instagram post below.

It can be assumed that the winner of the final climb of Alpe Cermis will be strong in the hill race.

The new vest competition within the tour has aroused different opinions among skiers. Swedes interviewed by Aftonbladet Andreas Byström and Linn Svahn react to the hill race in different ways.

– It has been discussed. How should that race compare to other races within the tour? Because I think it’s so clear that whoever wins the whole race will also win the hill race, Byström estimates.

– There must be some system in that regard. Let’s see how it works, he continued.

– I think it’s pretty funny. It is somewhat copied from road cyclists, Svahn reflected.

– I personally have no chance of wearing that vest. It would certainly be fun to succeed and I think it’s nice that the Tour has races within the events themselves.

More than 90,000 euros for the winners

In the overall competition, only one Finnish name has been seen in the winner’s column during the history: Virpi Kuitunen took the Tour right away in its inaugural season in 2006–07 and then in 2008–09.

Although the prize money distributed at the Tour de Ski has dropped from the winning sums originally distributed on the tour, the skiers from Italy still receive large sums. Some of the prize pools have increased for this season, some have decreased.

The overall winners of the Tour will each receive 85,000 Swiss francs, or approximately 91,700 euros. The winners’ pot has grown by 5,000 francs since last season. The prize money for the runners-up has instead dropped by the same amount of 5,000 francs, the runners-up will receive 55,000 francs, or about 58,800 euros.

In the Tour’s competitions, the top three also receive cash prizes. The winner will receive 3,000 francs (approx. 3,200 euros), the runner-up 2,000 (approx. 2,100 euros) and the third 1,000 (1,068 euros).

Last season in Finland Kerttu Niskanen earned a total of around 49,500 euros on the Tour. He was third overall and won two races.

The scoring is also different from the usual world cup competitions. The overall winner of the Tour gets 300 points. For one race, skiers are offered half of the normal points for a single World Cup race.

Only three Finns during hill week

The Central European hill week starts in Oberstdorf in Germany and ends in Bischofshofen in Austria.

Finnish colors are worn in Central Europe Antti Aalto, Niko Kytösaho and Kasperi Valto. Aalto has the highest Finnish World Cup overall competition ranking, at number 34.

The Women’s Hill Jumping World Cup will also continue at the turn of the year. The women will compete in Garmisch-Partenkirchen on December 31 and in Oberstdorf on January 1. Julia Kykkänen and Jenny Rautionaho are involved, but only Rautionaho continues on the 5th–6th. for the January games in Villach, Austria.