Eurovision Sport to transform ski mountaineering into a fan-focused cloud-based remote production ahead of Winter Olympics 2026 By Heather McLean, Editor
Wednesday, March 2, 2022 - 17:40
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Eurovision Sport is working with the International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) to turn the niche sport of ski mountaineering into an Olympic-ready discipline in time for the Winter Games in Milano Cortina in 2026. The EBU division is looking to repeat the success it achieved with the biathlon, governed by the International Biathlon Union (IBU), where, over several decades, it helped make an obscure military snow sport into one of the most popular Winter Olympic events. The new partnership will see Eurovision Sport and the ISMF re-shape ski mountaineering in an effort to make it into a household name.
Eurovision Sport struck a five-year host broadcaster agreement with ISMF which began last year from the start of the 2021-22 season. It is now in the middle of its initial season with ISMF, developing the sport itself, creating a pilot media platform - ISMF TV and testing technologies to enable the sport to grow and hit the snow at the Winter Olympics 2026 with skis ready.
From biathlon success to ski mountaineering splendour
Franck Choquard, head of content and platforms at Eurovision Sport, told SVG Europe about the origins of its relationship with the ISMF: The EBU, being the largest broadcaster's association worldwide, is representing most of the public service media in Europe. We have a lot of mandates from advocacy technology and content to really help public service media and support public service media.
On the sports side, we have a clear mandate of securing premium rights sporting properties on behalf of our membership, so we have more than 60 contracts with all kinds of sport in Europe and worldwide. On the winter sports side, we have a very, very strong relationship and portfolio with biathlon, our number one winter sport of cross country skiing and shooting, both in terms of reach and value.
We have to think innovatively when we want to do this kind of sport live because first of all, the format is difficult, and it's in the wild so you might not have the technology to produce it live because you don't have the resources. You need to balance all of that
We have just tenured with biathlon a new eight-year agreement, starting next year, he continues. That's the sport that we are particularly proud of because we started working with them 25 or 30 years ago; it was a military sport and quite unknown. Now it has become the number one winter sport by far in terms of rights value, in terms of visibility in key markets, such as the Germany, Nordics, and so on.
Now the EBU is looking to do for ISMF what it has done for the biathlon. When we look at ISMF and ski mountaineering, our ambition would be to repeat this success story and to be able to say in a few years' time, look where we started from, and now where we are .
He explains how Eurovision Sport began working with ISMF: We were approached by ISMF following the announcement of their participation to the next Winter Olympic Games [Milano Cortina 2026] as a new Olympic sport, in terms of how we could help them to grow and to become, let's say, more visible, more present, and how we can help them to prepare the step forward to become an Olympic sport in four years' time.
Our ambition is that by the time of the Olympics, to have reached a certain number of broadcast partners, and showcasing the sport on linear TV and on digital channels at the same level that we are covering other winter sports today, he states.
Eurovision Sport is working with ISMF to transform the sport in time for the Winter Olympics 2026
Translating events in the wild into TV-friendly formats
ISMF events currently consist of Individual, Vertical, Sprint, Long Distance Team, and new for the 2026 Olympics, Mixed Relay. Currently some of the ISMF competitions are hard to translate to the world of live television. Choquard says the Individual race is particularly challenging as competitors set off onto the wilds on a mountain where there is no connectivity at all, yet as a nascent live TV event, the resources are not available for expensive solutions such as aerial relay helicopters. This means that Eurovision needs to be creative and innovative in its approach.
Notes Choquard: We have to think innovatively when we want to do this kind of sport live because first of all, the format is difficult, because it's quite long and we need to find a way to film it, and it's in the wild so you might not have the technology to produce it live because you don't have the resources. You need to balance all of that.
There are some challenges to be addressed but we have already made a lot of progress. We started the journey back in early December with the first two races we did live in Italy. Since then, we've done an additional six races live. So now we really have a good system in place, and we will have three more races to do between now and the end of the season. Then we'll start building the progression for the coming season, while in parallel, together with ISMF, we need to build up some of the Olympic formats; the Mixed Relay which is part of [the ISMF's] commitment toward the IOC.
At the Olympics the ISMF will present five events: two Individual men and women two Sprints men and women and the Mixed Relay. Adds Choquard: For the first time, two weeks ago, we did all together the first Mixed Relay, both in terms of sports organisation, TV coverage, and so on. So all of that makes this kind of a challenge to develop in time for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
He continues: For us, it's really about how do we help the sport to adapt from where it is today to how to become s
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Eurovision Sport to transform ski mountaineering into a fan-focused cloud-based remote production ahead of Winter Olympics 2026 By Heather McLean, Editor 
