Audience fiasco at the World Cup: “Hold the goal in half”

Facing disappointment with humor can be effective.

Jens Burman, like the other Swedish WC riders, has noted the unusually thin crowd in Planica, and states dryly:

– It’s more than it was in Oberstdorf anyway.

At the World Cup two years ago, the corona pandemic was still raging, Germany was basically completely shut down and the stands in Oberstdorf were filled with cardboard dolls instead of live skiing fans.

“Believed in more audience”

It hasn’t really been that bad in Slovenia, but the sparsely seeded sections at the cross-country stadium in Planica are noticeable. Not even Jens Burman’s lowest fan club of around 40 people from Åsarna can change that.

– I thought there would be more of an audience, says Maja Dahlqvist.

– It is mostly when you go that you hear your own thoughts. You don’t do that when it’s the World Cup in Falun. It’s different in different places but I thought it would be more now because it’s a championship.

Even the WC organizer thought so. Tomi Trbovc is the press manager for the championship and admits without further ado that they had much higher hopes for the interest.

For a while there was talk of a target of upwards of 200,000 spectators throughout the WC, later it was about 100,000–150,000.

“Hold the goal in half”

Before Thursday, with four competition days left, a total of 37,600 people had paid in at the WC area.

– We have had to halve the goal. Now we hope for maybe 60,000 in total, possibly 70,000. We’ll see, says Tomi Trbovc.

TT: What went wrong?

– We were hoping for more foreign spectators. More Norwegians, more Swedes, more Finns. Last fall it was pretty well booked, but then the cancellations started trickling in. The explanation from the travel agencies is that it has become more expensive to live, there is a crisis and a war, says Trbovc.

CLIP: Gunde Svan pays tribute to the Swedish women’s skiers: “Extremely impressed”