Aleksander Kilde hurtles down the Streif at top speed. The Norwegian skier, winner of the legendary Kitzbühel descent on Friday ahead of the French Johan Clarey and Blaise Giezendanner, is not entirely alone in his mad race towards victory in the Austrian resort. Above him, a drone follows the curves it draws in the Tyrolean snow. With the mission of offering a new and spectacular point of view on the effort of the athletes on this legendary track.
Spectacular images, which give the impression of seeing the race from the point of view of a particularly alert and playful bird, widely highlighted since the start of the weekend of competition by the various broadcasters of the event. “How beautiful are these images filmed by drone on the Streif in Kitzbühel”, welcomed Eurosport on Twitter, holder of the rights to the Alpine Skiing World Cup in France.
Impressive, but why wait until 2022 to offer this additional card to an achievement often criticized for its immobility? The reason bears the name of an Italian station, the scene of a previous experiment in December 2015: Madonna di Campiglio. On the other side of the Alps, a drone used by television had crashed just behind the cador of the time of the discipline, Marcel Hirscher. No physical consequences for the person concerned, but very bad publicity for drones which had prompted the International Ski Federation (FIS) and race organizers to put the idea on stand-by.
But in 2021, the FIS changed president, the irremovable Gianfranco Kasper giving way to the more modern Johan Eliasch, ex-president of the equipment manufacturer Head. Anxious to dust off the circuit, the Swede has launched a working group responsible for rethinking the broadcasting of these races. And drones naturally came back into the discussions.
“The only way to bring the speed of this sport to the screen”
“We need new production formats, and this is the only way to bring the speed of this sport to the screen,” underlines Michel Vion, former president of the French Federation, now secretary general of the FIS. You have to go ahead and test things. Three events have therefore been selected to test the return of drones: the Laax Freestyle Snowboarding Open a week ago in Switzerland, the World Ski Flying Championships in Vikersund, Norway, in March, and Kitzbühel in Alpine skiing.
Much lighter than its tragically destined Italian predecessor (regarding 600 grams, compared to 11 kg), the drone used by the ORF, the Austrian public television, is managed by a team of four people who have been working hard on the thing for a month. . One of the quartet members, Joachim Hausleitner, is in constant contact with the air traffic controllers. “If, for example, a helicopter arrives, we are not allowed to take off or land immediately,” he explains in an article from the ORF dedicated to the device.
Daniel Ausweger, presented as a reference in the field, is responsible for piloting the machine, glasses connected to the camera on his eyes. Several rules are imposed on the device, capable of spinning at more than 100 km / h: do not fly over the public, limited to 1000 people this year due to the pandemic, nor the fixed cameras installed on the route. “If the fog lifts or if the weather gets too bad, we will stop,” emphasizes Joachim Hausleitner.
Used from training on Thursday despite the snowfall, the drone is expected once more this Sunday for the second descent of the weekend in Kitzbühel. If some spectators appreciated the more immersive realization of the event, others had a little more trouble with the concept. “Some spectators complained of having almost fallen ill,” notes Stefan Hofmann, commentator for the Swiss channel SRF.
“We must not systematize the thing, underlines Michel Vion. We will end up getting bored if we offer it to each skier passing by. It is a very interesting tool, namely to use in a relevant way. Before, perhaps, imagining a generalization to the whole circuit.