On the weekend of February 25-27, the World Cup in Skicross was to take place in Sunny Valley, Russia. Due to the current situation in the world, the International Ski Federation (FIS) was expected to cancel the race, but this did not happen despite the fact that only competitors from Russia started until Friday’s qualification, as the others boycotted the event. Among them were Czech ski cross-country skiers Daniel Paulus and Nikol Kučerová, who gave an exclusive interview to TN.cz after returning from Russia.
What do you think about the fact that the FIS did not originally cancel the race and let Russia qualify despite what is currently happening in the world?
That was terrible. I didn’t understand it at all and I’m glad we finally agreed and nobody went. The only ones who drove were the Russian representatives, but on the other hand I don’t know if they had to go or not. I don’t want to swear at them because they were at home and under a different pressure. About two hours after qualifying, they canceled the race, but it was quite late. After all, the competitors can’t decide that we won’t go at all. It should not have reached this point at all.
Do you think they canceled the race just because the competitors resigned? That if there was no “strike”, it would go away?
I have no idea. I won’t argue about why they did it, because there were more reasons for those. First of all, they would still have to cancel it retrospectively, because it would not be a World Cup and they could only use it as a FIS race, because there was no other nation, and that is not possible according to the rules. That definitely played a role. I do not know what role a higher politician played when all the races on Russian territory were canceled. The FIS may have hit from higher ground on the recommendation of the Olympic Committee, but of course that is just my speculation.
Whose idea was it that you wouldn’t enter the race en masse? Was it a common idea, or did someone start organizing it first and tear down the others?
I don’t remember anyone starting to organize it. It just started to talk about, and I think everyone started watching the news and thinking about it. I myself had been thinking about it two days before, whether it was right to go or what to do and how to deal with it. But the individual himself will not do much, and in addition we need to think about our safety, after all, we were in Russia, yes. But I think they were the first Germans to come to terms of it. But then the coaches also agreed that they did not want to go, the competitors agreed. I think there were also competitors who wanted to go, but had to submit to the majority.
So there was no choice that one competitor from that country would ride and another would not?
Yes, I was. There are two of us (with the skier Daniel Paulus), so we can agree easily, but I don’t know how they approached it in big teams, when half wants and half does not. I think that those who did not want persuaded the other half, and they usually also received an order from the union to be united. So that one doesn’t go and the other doesn’t.
Were you worried about your safety that they would not let you out of Russia at all?
They just didn’t want to let us go. That’s why we flew on Saturday. It started to be talked about on Thursday, after training it started to be solved and I was already looking for tickets for Friday morning, but they told us that they would not give us any buses, no transport before Saturday. But I think, and this is my assumption, that they expected that if we did not leave by Friday, we would at least enter that qualification. They tried to keep us there. On Thursday, only the Australian, who was there alone and had two people with her, and the British with one coach, left, so they took a taxi, packed up and left for the airport. But for example, the Canadian team numbered 25 people and it was not so easy there.
Did you talk about the situation with the Russian racers, what do they think?
They have a really bad time with them because most of them don’t speak English. We normally greet each other, we’re fine together, but rather these are just phrases like “How are you?” and congratulations. But I probably wouldn’t know if I would talk to anyone about anything other than racing. I don’t think they liked it either, when they saw that we were all sitting in civilian clothes and they were racing. They probably did it as training. It wouldn’t be nice for me to go after them and ask them if they don’t feel like idiots.
How do you plan to keep racing if the situation in Ukraine does not change? Will you want to take part in other races?
Just yesterday, I had a discussion about this with the Canadian Brittany Phelan, and we deduced that there are two completely different views. One is that even if this is the case, it is still a sport that should radiate something positive and should unite people, and even though there is a war, we should all live our lives. Not living your life is basically what the aggressors want, where they want us. On the other hand, in this situation where we are fighting for humny and we are playing sports here, it can seem that we despise the whole situation. We also said that if someone wins, if they want to publish happy photos, they won the World Cup, when half of the Internet is flooded with people dying in Ukraine. It’s terribly morally difficult and I admit I don’t know what I’m going to do.
In ski cross, the key is the start itself:
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