New faces bring fresh air to Valgardena/Gröden

The men's downhill in Valgardena/Gröden celebrates its 40th anniversary with big news this year. The Organiser, the Saslong Classic Club, has made some big changes among its staff. The leading persons are now younger, and the President of the OC is now a woman.

"I know the Valgardena/Gröden  Worldcup is in good hands", states Erich Demetz, who has been OC president and chief of race for years. "So I can look onto the future with no sorrow". With Stefania Demetz the lead of the OC is in a woman's hands for the first time. The new chief of race is Rainer Senoner, Manuela Perathoner coordinates the race office. The Saslong Classic deputy president Edmund Dellago: "I am happy to see young people taking on responsibility in the OC. So we can start retiring after having worked for 40 years." So the Valgardena/Gröden  slogan is "Forwards with the youth!"

Stefania Demetz is 31 years old and comes from Wolkenstein. The new OC president studied languages and literature in Milan, finishing with a work about the modern Spanish writer  Juan Josè Millas. "It's a great challenge to step into my father's footsteps," says the Spain expert. "Stefi" Demetz gained experience in several events at home and abroad, such as the Summer Olympic Games 1992 in Barcelona, the Athletics World Championships in Stuttgart (1993), the Ski World Championships at Sierra Nevada (1996), the Ice Hockey World Championship in Zurich (1998) and the Cycling World Championship  in Verona (1998), just to name the most important ones. By the way: the new OC president was born one month before the Ski World Championship  1970, where her father was technical director.

Rainer Senoner is 34 years old and comes from Wolkenstein as well. The new technical director of the  Saslong Classic Club has taken over this task full of responsibility from Erich Demetz. "We shouldn't have any problems with the snow production this year. The lift company puts 60 snow guns to our disposal in order to make it snow onto the Saslong", states the new chief of race. Some of his tasks are the coordination of the safety, the preparation of the slopes, the set up of the course, the finish area, the timekeeping, medical assistance, emergency and other services. Some years ago he used to work with the Chilean national ski team.

Manuela Perathoner, 37, comes from St.Ulrich and is mother of 3 children. She has taken over from Edmund Dellago and also takes care of the hotel bookings.