Skiweltcup Dresden might not be a purist idea of cross-country skiing, but its one of the best organized events on the FIS calendars – and most loved by the athlets. Dresden is a tourist city in normal times and thousands of visitors and 50 million television viewers worldwide the Dresden City Sprints get go a long way toward promoting the beauty of the Saxonian capital.
Alas, the things are not normal this year and Dresden is probably hit harder than the rest: Saxony is posting some of the worst Covid infection rates in Germany in the last few weeks and all tourist attractions are shut.
Yet Weltcup Dresden is to happen. We speak to the event spokesperson and one of those people who work on organizing it full time, 365 days a year. Meet Daniela Möckel
Corona crisis itself was, of course, the biggest hurdle for us . The things didn’t work at all the way it was meant to be. We couldn’t plan anything specifically, sign any contracts or stipulate anything because nobody knew how the situation would develop.
The second hurdle was definitely the external communications here in the city. The athletes the teams, the FIS itself – they all love us. There is a saying “When we are in Dresden, everything is fine.”
But in our own city in Dresden, we had a hard time this year. Saxony is on lockdown. Normal life is is not possible for the people. Yet apparently something’s going on here in the city and it’s a big party. At least that’s what many local citizens here think.
But it is not like that. As organizers, we had to do without so much. We couldn’t do the school sport on skis project, clubs weren’t allowed on the track. And not even the citizens of Dresden. That caused a lot of displeasure and incomprehension. And that hurts us too. We have always put forward arguments: We are running a professional sports event here. And professional sport is explicitly allowed in Saxony even during the lockdown. The football Bundesliga has been playing for months. There are handball games, volleyball games. Formula 1 races were held worldwide. Always under strict hygiene conditions and with enormous security for everyone. It was and is still hard for us to communicate advantages of this wonderful event, which is a full -time job for so many people throughout the year, to the residents of Dresden.
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