Yelena Vyalbe: We Need Additional Half-a-million Euros Just For Corona-testing

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Everyone is aware of the fact that the top-level cross-country skiing is not exactly awash in money and some national teams positively struggle to have ends meet even in the best of times.

The Corona-crisis will make it worse. As in ” half-a-million euros worse” in case of Team Russia, as per the boss of the Russian skiing.

“We normally have some 60+ people travelling to the World Cup stages – that figure includes athletes plus coaches and all the support personnel. We did the math: newly introduced COVID-19 testing measures at every stage would set us down some 500 to 530 thousand euros this season.”, the chairman of the Russian Ski Association told Dailyskier.com in recent conversation.

No national xcski team makes its spending sheet publicly available (with a possible exception of Norway) but it is well understood that most teams could only dream of half-a-million / year as their total budget.

The Russians are the largest xcski team in the world but the Norwegians and the Swedes are not that far behind, sporting some 40+ people at most WC stages.

The prices for coronavirus testing vary wildly in Europe – Vyalbe said her skiers, coaches and waxers had to shed a staggering sum of 230 euros each on arrival to Finland where they currently prepare for the opening FIS World Cup race in Ruka.

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