S5 Ep8 - Jurg Capol
[00:00:00] Tom Kelly: And today, Heartbeat is taking you to the heart of Switzerland, one of the most beautiful parts of the country with me. You're Köppel, the CEO of the World Championships, which are coming up in less than two weeks now in Europe. Thank you so much for joining us today from Lenzerheide.

[00:00:18] Jürg Capol: Good day. Happy to be to be here in this case.

[00:00:22] Tom Kelly: How is now we're we're recording this I think about 12 days out from the start of the championships. How's the weather in Lenzerheide?

[00:00:31] Jürg Capol: Actually, we have beautiful winter conditions. I would say we got some fresh snow two days ago. Almost 40cm. And now it's on minus two degrees. Forest is still beautiful. White. So it's a dream winter world currently, I would call it.

[00:00:48] Tom Kelly: It really is. It's just it really is an amazing place. I was there a year ago alpine skiing had a wonderful time. Beautiful sunshine, beautiful mountains, pretty rugged area, a nice stunning alpine peaks in Lenzerheide.

[00:01:04] Jürg Capol: That's correct. It's a well known for other World Cup events like alpine, as you mentioned, but mountain bike took place here. It was the cross country Tour de Ski -- had some stages here. And now we have a biathlon as well. We had one World Cup so far and now it goes to this championship.

[00:01:20] Tom Kelly: Just to familiarize our listeners a little bit with Lenzerheide. Can you tell us a little bit about where it's located in Switzerland and maybe a little bit about the history of the community?

[00:01:32] Jürg Capol: Yeah, well, Switzerland is not that big. That's maybe not one, but that's probably well known for many persons. And, uh, Zurich is where most persons arrive to Switzerland is with the airport in Zurich and from Zurich, actually, it takes you in one and a half, 1:45 by car to Lenzerheide. So it's in the east southeast part from Zurich. From this direction it's located on the station. The destination is located on 1500m over sea level. It has a connected ski area to Arosa as well. So there is a, I would say 200, 220, 230km of slopes, in this case in the rear and a lot of cross country, which because it's a kind of a plateau, it's a it's a way up when you come from Zurich to core. Core is another small city. It's maybe the oldest city in Switzerland even. And then you have another 15K and then you end up in Lenzerheide, which have a nice lake. And the plateau is also beautiful for cross-country skiing, I would say about 75km of of different tracks as well. As I mentioned, when you have a mountain bike World Cup, you have a lot of small creeks and slopes and whatever you have to do in summertime as well. It's a it's a destination, which I would say, which is busy about ten months a year. Um, summer.

[00:02:58] Tom Kelly: And I believe you grew up in Chur, right?

[00:03:02] Jürg Capol: That's correct. And as I said, it's it's a 15, 20 minutes drive from Chur to Lenzerheide. Chur is located down in the valley on 600 meters over sea level. And. And the destinations here is in 1500 meters over sea.

[00:03:16] Tom Kelly: Let's talk a little bit about the history of biathlon. Lenzerheide is actually a relatively new venue for the sport, but a lot has happened over the last 15 to 20 years in biathlon, cross country and other outdoor sports.

[00:03:32] Jürg Capol: And that's correct. We had one now in World Cup. Regarding World Cups, we had one World Cup so far and that was in December a year ago. And that of course, was in sense of preparation. And normally I would say you do several times a World Cup and then you ask for a World Championships. In the case of Lenzerheide, we had the Junior worlds in Worlds in 2020. And then a few months later, we were candidate for the Championships 25. But I would say everybody believed we will do once to be a candidate, and then we have maybe some chances two years later or three years later or four years later. But surprisingly, uh, Lenzerheide won. There was a two candidates. There was Belarus and and Switzerland in this case at that moment. And the IBU Congress decided already in 2020, to be honest, to to choose a Lenzerheide. Um, the whole history about biathlon. That's correct. It's it's not long. It's not just regarding World Cup. Of course, we had some biathletes always, but nevertheless the whole I would call it training facilities was limited. Uh, it started in Lenzerheide actually, the first time we had a Swiss championships was 20 years ago. And, then they had the had the idea to develop this displays a little bit more, but there was a lot of discussions.

[00:04:57] Jürg Capol: As you can imagine, they were well known for cross country slopes or cross country tracks already at that time. But then in 2012, I met the person, Mr. Michael Hartweg. It's the father of Niklas Hartweg and he was impressed by him. And you know, you know me as well, Tom. I'm not that quick impressed, but nevertheless I never met a guy which told me in 2012, I have a vision. I want to have won the Biathlon World Cup. I don't have a stadium, I don't have somebody which organized the event. But one day we will have a World Cup and I know the place where he showed me his first ideas and there was, I would call it today, nothing more than just a cross country course which passed by. There I met Michael one year later he came with the first first more plans. In this case. He showed me that what I think, and two years later he had an even more detailed plan. And surprisingly, two years later, that means in 2016, this whole whole facilities, with constructions, with the shooting range, with roller ski tracks or the first part of the roller ski track was built. And, um, I guess you have not that very often a person which invests directly in a sports stadium.

[00:06:17] Jürg Capol: I mean, you have that maybe in football or other events, but regarding winter sport events, you don't have very often private person which invests money in a stadium. And he was um, I would call it the main investor for the whole project. There was some other money, but without him it would never happened. There was maybe some other persons, of course, but he was the key person. And in 2016, afterwards they started to have more competitions on lower level IBU Cup as well, of course. And then these Junior Worlds. And from that they got the idea really to ask for championships. And I would say, um, those persons which are fighting hard to get it, they got it and they had to inform afterwards the whole community that we have a championships now because it was a smaller group which, which pushed and pushed which which believed. Yeah. Two years later we have maybe a chance. But they got it from the first first vote without any World Cup experiences actually. So that's a unique position regarding the sport development of biathlon. We had Selina Gasparin, she was maybe the lady which, which she also won a silver medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi in 2014. And when she started biathlon, of course, she had to fix the whole range by herself and then she could train it on a on a very temporary construction.

[00:07:46] Jürg Capol: And then there may be some other demands. But we didn't have a facility 20 years ago that was more or less 20 years ago. Now in Realp, that's in the middle of Switzerland. The first training facilities was built in close to a military area where they invested, and there was still the it's still in place today, but it's of course is a smaller range with ten shooting positions, etc. but at least they gave a kick for biathlon. And biathlon came also a part of Swiss Ski at that moment because their federation, I would call it today were almost bankrupt. And from that, on the whole, let's say the sport development, the teams got better, the structure got probably financial support, could do more training camps, could attend on competitions, of course. And that was then. This last 20 years was really an increased interest for biathlon in Switzerland as well. And of course you need you need big home runs in this case. And the first home run was now the World Cup and now the biggest home run, of course, which you can have beside the Olympic Winter games is is a championships.

[00:08:56] Tom Kelly: In your role as CEO? I imagine that you've been because you have a new venue there, that you've been going out to a lot of World Cups and a lot of competitions to learn a little bit more about the sport and venues. I mean, what are some of the takeaways that you've had from going to see other world-class biathlon venues around Europe?

[00:09:18] Jürg Capol: Yeah, I would say you, you take always I mean, the sport part is, you know, for each sport, whatever you do in winter sport, it's not just for winter sport but my, my experience is from winter sport is um, when I take away the sport, the rest is quite similar actually. If you have marketing and communication or whatever you have with TV production, that's very, very often the same, the same questions. But of course the sport part myself. I'm not the experienced biathlete, though. That one. I'm maybe some experience in cross country. Regarding that part and, uh. But I have to say the, the sport persons which we have in our community committee, they were they, they did a lot of competition since actually the whole construction was done. So they did a lot of IBU cups, junior cups, Swiss cups and whatever, Junior World championships, whatever. On what level. So they they are well trained to do competition. And I would say the sport has always to work. If the sport doesn't work, it doesn't matter which level you do it. And it's maybe even the easiest on the highest level because you have a lot of support, in this case from international referees and whatever you have on smaller competitions, you need full engagement from persons.

[00:10:30] Jürg Capol: And I would say the the whole sport stuff which we have is not just that they did. Yes, they did also once a World Cup, but they did a lot of other smaller competitions where it worked fine. And they know biathlon by heart. So, therefore, I'm really happy about our sports guys that we have them in the team. Well experienced guys. And in another positions, we have positions which are never experienced from the Alpine World Cup. We have the OC president from the Mountain Bike World Cup, or he was all he did also the World Championships in mountain biking in 2018. He is also a member of our team. So we we collected knowledge. We we have we build up the knowledge in sport already several years ago. Therefore I can really trust on a team which everyone knows for each department what to do. And um, knowledge is really included in our committee.

[00:11:27] Tom Kelly: World Championships is a very big undertaking as you're seeing … you're right in the middle of it now. What size of a staff do you have and size of your volunteer pool?

[00:11:39] Jürg Capol: Yeah. Well, we have a kind of a key OC team. In this case, we have, maybe have to say we have a board. Of course. It's like a club in this case which organize it. And there is some the political part which involved this Swiss Ski is a part of the board and also the tourism part of the region are part of the board. And, below we have, in this case the management level or the OC team, which is nine persons which which some have a mandate now because there is a lot of work to do. It's not just a second hand job in this case or a second job to do. It takes you too much time, um, to do and some of that. But that can be quite different from positions where you are, how much you will be will be hired, or how many that you get. And below we have a lot of sub-leaders in this case which, which lead other person because the whole team at the at the end will be all, will be all will be almost 900 persons in our OC. And it's like a small company in this case, and just in a company you work for several years and here we do it for two weeks. We blow it up in this case specifically those weeks and of course during the championships.

[00:12:57] Jürg Capol: And then you have maybe some weeks you do the whole whatever construction to take away all the stuff. And then three weeks, three weeks later already it's hard to know that there was a Championships in this case for the whole building regarding temporary constructions. But it's an extreme situation. You have to lead 900 persons in. In other hand, um, you have a lot of experienced persons in the main positions. You have a lot of good leaders in the sub positions, and you have to lead the volunteers. And what I can say, many of the volunteers are really committed to stay at least for a week or even longer. And even many of them stay for two weeks to be in our team. And that helps. Of course, then, you know, they know their job. They know that they can speak each day with the same person. And you don't start each day with some new person which should do the job regarding maybe some even some volunteering jobs. It's good to have experience stuff and development goes day by day, so therefore I'm happy to have we found them. I would say not easy, but rather easy that they they they come committed to be a member of of our volunteering team. So I'm happy to stay.

[00:14:18] Tom Kelly: And do your volunteers come from around Switzerland, from around Europe, from around the world?

[00:14:25] Jürg Capol: I would say, you know, I have to say that way in February, here in the destination is high season. It's one of the highest point. And economical-wise it's important that they have a good February. I would say then. Then one of the key months is is safe and makes it, as I said on the economical part, is an important month because it's just mostly it's already booked out. And now at the same time we do a championship. So of course local person which have a business there, probably quite strongly involved in their own business. So we have some of the region of course, in a surrounding of whatever 40, 50km. We have a lot of volunteers as well. And we generated a lot of, I would call it biathlon. Biathlon volunteers, which are also volunteering in other biathlon events, are also coming to the World Championships and then then some other whatever sport enthusiasts which want to be the volunteers, I would say it's a little bit more than 80% are Swiss. We have also some other nations. I would say most of them would call it from Germany because Germany, that's the like of Lake of Constant. That's about one half hour from from Lenzerheide. So then you're already in Germany and, uh, then some other nations. But Germany is maybe the second biggest market as well.

[00:15:44] Tom Kelly: Let's talk a little bit more about your background. You were an athlete. You competed in the Olympics, a cross country skier. Give us a little sense of what sport meant to you as you were growing up in Switzerland.

[00:15:58] Jürg Capol: I would, I would say when I was a junior, I just liked it. I had my friends. I had a good ski club, to be honest. We had a good coach with them which, which animated my friends and me to do cross country. You know, when I in the age I have maybe to start at the age of 15, I played football or soccer and I was a member of a ski club for cross-country skiing. And then one day I had to decide because the training was both time on Saturday afternoon or a match or whatever. So I had to decide what kind of sport I will do. And it was not. It was not the region. I didn't like football and I even played keeper. I liked it as well, but I said to the coach in football I have better friends in cross country, I like them more and they are better friends. So that's the reason. And even in cross country is an indoor sport, in this case, this club, I would call it milieu or whatever you call it correctly, this atmosphere, this mood which we have between the young boys in this case was important for me to say. I stay in the ski club and from that point I had some success in the Swiss level. And then I got to the junior team and from there at the Junior World Championships and. Et cetera, et cetera. When I was 20, I got the chance to be in the B team of Suisse of Swiss Ski Association at that time. And I said, I have one dream that was Olympic Games in 88 when I was 20, and that was 2 or 3 years later.

[00:17:27] Jürg Capol: And I said myself, now you are young. You have the chance to do it. And I like what I can do. And probably at that time, it was my dream to be just a skier or a cross country skier. I didn't have any other wishes. In this case, I was just a dream job, which I could do at that time. And I was then at the games, we came number four in the relay, for example. And of course, then you like probably more um, I did some more years afterwards as well, once I had an accident and I had lost one kidney, but nevertheless I came back and after Lillehammer, I said, maybe I like other things to do in life as well, besides the skier or as a young person. You you feel you can do it. But then I was motivated to do more stuff in my life in this case. And, um, so it was the right moment when, when I switched to to to other jobs, my background afterwards, I did several projects. Then I came in tourism. Actually, I was the tourist director in in a region close to St. Moritz, and from there I was involved in the Alpine World Championships in 2003 as a head of marketing for this Alpine World Championships. And from there I got to FIS, and I was the race director for cross country for nine years. And afterwards I was involved in ... to sell rights for FIS. And afterwards I was six years the head of marketing at FIS before I switched into the biathlon world champion.

[00:18:54] Tom Kelly: Well, I want to go back to the time that you worked in cross-country sport at the International Ski Federation. That was a time of great change in the sport. A lot of evolution, and you were very much at the center of that. Let's take a look at the origins of the tour de ski. And I know that you and Vegard Ulvang from Norway were very involved in that. Tell us a little bit about how that concept originated.

[00:19:18] Jürg Capol: Yes, I started in the season. Was my first season 2003, 2004 as race director in cross country skiing. And of course, the first year I wanted really to because I was the first time on tour the whole day, the whole whole season. In this case, it was my first as a race director. Of course, I did a lot of notes on how cross country should develop and what what I believed. It could be positive for cross country. And after this first season and there was spring 2004, I did a big report, I guess 56 pages. I still have the report, actually fun to read, but that's not the issue. We don't go through that. But one of the point was cross country. What I said the conclusion was we need to create the highlight of the season. We have a lot of World Cup weekends. We have a lot of of whatever sprints. We have classic technique. We have 50 K, we have ten K, we have whatever kind of format, but people don't know who is the king of the sport because there's so different ones. And you at the end you have a summary and one is the winner. But uh, but because of the different disciplines, it doesn't make it make it so easy. And then I said to Vegard, we need to be creative in the summer because I told them in springtime, in fall, we will present you an idea which says that can be our new highlight.

[00:20:38] Jürg Capol: And then it came in August. I was in Norway to do some site inspection for World Cup resorts, which had the follow-up seasons of World Cup. And I sent a few ideas really roughly to Vega before, and then he said, yeah, we go for a sauna. And I said, okay, I'll join you at the sauna. And he has a wood sauna. Of course, it takes some time until the sauna was warm and he brought a couple of beers, I would say. And we had we were quite. It was because it was summer. We had some beers and we forgot a little bit the fire in the sauna. We had several times to restart because we were speaking too much. And we started to sign down or to write down our ideas on his sauna book. He had a kind of maybe a memory that I was in Vegard sauna. I wanna thank you. And this book, we did the first kind of minutes of our first discussion. And that was, uh, shortly after Tour de France ended. And the idea was, let's say, why are the sports have one event which is bigger than the rest? It's still cycling is cycling, and they do the same at Tour de France. We looked at whatever ski jumping is, the Four Hills Tournament, which still ski jumping, but it's still it gets more attraction if you persons communicate more, it's more watched or whatever parameters we took. And then we said we need to bring it together, like cycling, for example, to have a certain tour, several stages and several formats, whatever, classic and free technique together.

[00:22:12] Jürg Capol: And I said, when I was young in Switzerland, at the end of the season, we had a kind of a Swiss Week, which was also in five to seven days. We had a few competitions, but that time we counted points. But it was a kind of a small tool to ski or to the ski in the first whatever experience. And I said we did that, and from that we did this first whatever minutes in his sauna book, I took a picture. We were in the sauna as well. Of course, if we started at 6:00, we ended the sauna at 12:00. At midnight, I would say we were not so long time in, but we had we had a good time and the sauna book had quite some, some minutes. And from that I did a first presentation and, and then I recuperated. Vega was at that time the chairman of the cross-country committee. And of course we prepared ourselves involved and afterwards a few persons. And that means in one half months later, there was the committee meeting the first time, and then we presented the idea. Everybody seems to be happy with the idea. And then we went to the council directly and said, we want to integrate in two years a new concept for for this period at Christmas time.

[00:23:25] Jürg Capol: Ten days, eight competitions, 1 million prize money. And but you have to know of this first sauna evening I had. I asked Gian Franco, the former president of FIS, what he believes because when he would say no, I would be less offensive. I would call it so. But he said he looked at it and the only comment what he said to do it and then when he says do it, then understood that was a clear goal or tried at least. And he said, you have a chance to do it. But he didn't do a lot of comments. You just do it. So that was the proof, the approval of the concept, actually, and then this committee and then the council and, and the first two, the ski then was took place in this case in the season. 2006 2007 This two year. Little bit more than two years later, after the first presentation at the committee, and now I guess it was 19 times and one additional history to the to the to the sky, because we were not sure about all the stages at the beginning, how what should be the combination. And that was the spring after that means in, in, in spring 2 or 5 or end of season April. It was like I was in Val di Fiemme and I saw the first time, let's say the slope on Alpe Cermis there was new down this, this slope that they didn't some new it was white.

[00:24:57] Jürg Capol: And I said to myself, maybe that could be a great idea to have the final stage there. And that was in April 25. And I said to the colleagues from Val di Fiemme, which I knew from all the World Cups before. We need a meeting because we want to have Tour de Ski i Val di Fiemme. One stage in the stadium. But what do you think about the finish at Alpe Cermis? This final stage? It was Pietro De Godenz, he is still the president. He never did a lot of cross country skiing. We had at lunchtime. We had a small aperitif at the middle station there. We skied down some alpine skiing and ask himself, what do you think about this hill? And he said it was easy to ski. But of course we went down with alpine skis. And I said to him, I will ski tomorrow morning, I will ski up. And then if you agree, because you need some investment to do, you need a second finish. It's not so easy to do everything in this case. And he said, we are positive. Ski up and let us know what you think. And I skied up the first pitch. I did some pictures because I said to myself, I need to inform the committee that we do the new final stage and nobody has seen it. Nobody had done it, but we want to do it in 2006 and that was already spring 2005.

[00:26:15] Jürg Capol: I did some pictures and I was thinking the first one half K is not that steep. I did some pictures and then it's about whatever. One half kilometer is quite, quite steep. And I was saying myself, I don't tell too much to them and I take some pictures again the last 500m, because there is less steep again, because I had ideas how to go up with a kind of pass or a zigzag way, or giant slalom way or whatever. But of course, no experience means you have no idea really to do how to do it. And nobody really skied up on us with a high speed. And, so then we, um, we did it. I did these pictures, Pietro De Godenz agreed the president of the OC. And from that point, um, we we went to the committee and said, here, I have some nice pictures. Is there good in the beginning and also good in between, a little bit steeper. Deeper, but it will be good. It will be a good story. And nobody did some questions because they saw some nice pictures which looked good, which looked quite stable. And okay, this stage was there. Nobody skied up. You know, nobody tested it. Nobody homologated it. But it was was done and placed and nobody asked a question. And till the day when we had the first time to the ski in 2006, Munich was the first stage.

[00:27:42] Jürg Capol: Then we were in Oberstdorf, we were in Asiago. We came to Val di Fiemme, to this big final, and then the athletes saw it the first time, how steep the hill is. And journalists ask me and I ski the first time with Vega up, we skied nicely. First one half K, then we came to the steep section and after five minutes he asked me, how long is this hill? And and and from that point he's. I said to him, oh, it's another ten minutes here where we are. Then he believed me. We still need more. Do you think it's a good idea to do that race here? And I said, now we are in. It will be good. We have just to think how we do it. Because at that time we we didn't have we hadn't we didn't have the course prepared and we skied up. Of course, athletes were also asking ourselves if this is a good idea because nobody did a preparation for that. And then we had the coach from Virpi Kuitunen that time she was the leader of the ski, but she said, that's not skiable. It looks horrible for cross-country skiing. And um, so therefore, it's it's not good. But we did it. And what we did the last point that put that try to put some skins on the skis, then the day before because they think it's impossible, like for skiers only ski mountaineering, it's a similar stuff. And they tried it and from that moment.

[00:29:10] Jürg Capol: I said to my colleagues at Saturday evening when we took it three times, we went up and put the put the gates. I said at 10:00 to my colleagues at the jury, and I was still a member of the jury. I said, tomorrow, who puts skins on the skis will be disqualified. It's not in the rules. It doesn't matter. But we need we need not to tell the next day who had the best skins on the skis will be the winner. So I send out an SMS to all the coaches. I had already. There. A kind of a system where I could reach all of them in 1 in 1 shot in this case, and I switched on my phone after that. And then I went for dinner with Italians. It always takes longer. And my colleagues, I didn't tell to my colleagues that I switched off my phone. So they of course they got some telephones, the members got some telephones, some angry coaches, and in one hour later they came a little bit back because I was always eating. And nobody called me, of course, because my my phone was switched off. I said to them when they came back, now, you did all the phones. I can switch on my phone again because you did all the secretary work already. I don't have to call them back. And then I saw it was 53 which tried to reach me in this hour.

[00:30:23] Tom Kelly: This is. This is such a great story. Thank you for diving back into that. We're going to take a quick show break. But before we do, I just want to ask you now, it's been almost two decades since Tour de Ski began in the sauna of Vegard Ulvang up in Norway. I imagine, Jürg, that you look upon this with quite a bit of pride when you watch the Tour de Ski today.

[00:30:47] Jürg Capol: Of course it it cuts. Our wish was to to get attention for the sport and the communication, what we speak about cross country. And I would say today, the whole media valley from to the ski is about 40% of the whole season in those ten, eight, nine days of the whole of the tour de ski goes. So the story to do different stages to do, um, to count all the stages together. It works, and it gives just it's not just a one day race. And next day, next day it's over. And another story will come, but here we stay in the story. It's. I like to read a book, uh, a multi-stage in this case. So that worked. Well, we had all the stages from Cortina to Toblach. We had several good stories, really, to tell. And, I guess when I, when I stopped the race director, of course, I said also my story, the baby is now walking alone and in 2012 and I left cross country. Of course I said also, I want to step out because I want not to tell them what to do. That's their no, not my business. It's their business. If they have a question, of course, always happy to give them my opinion, but I tried to avoid to give my personal comments what they should do. What what? … We create a lot of good stories. I mean, cross country in Switzerland got a good story because Dario Cologna was one of the person which won several times to the ski. I guess he was even at 8:00 in the news. He was a story about daddy. What he did in the stage today, especially the first year. And to that you get, of course, attention.

[00:32:17] Jürg Capol: And you get, um, in this case, a media story. And that was brilliant for, for the sport as well. And that this multi-stage helped a lot to have a stage over, over, over ten days. And from, from that point, yes, I'm proud to, to be to build up the story in this case, um, of the 2012. Of course, in between I would do it something different or I felt now it's a little bit copy-paste too often the same story. Maybe you need to add or to create a new a new stage maybe, which is creative again, but I hold, I hold my, my, my mouse in this case and said, maybe another time I will give my advice after 20 years when to the ski will happen 2020 times again and that will happen next year, actually. So, um, so, um, but still, I feel it's a good development for cross country. As I said, it's still a story. The multi-stage story still works. It was also this year, even it was criticized because it's only two, 2 or 1 country with several stages, which is located to two resorts. Of course, our idea was also to have several nations involved in between sustainability or what say how our athletes can recover to do all the stages. It's a complex thing. It's not just one point, but still I would be happy to maybe get another nation than just one nation like in Italy even they did good stages, but we probably create more interest on different stages than just on two. But, it was still a, still a good tool to ski the last edition, even even more limited to the resorts which they have.

[00:33:58] Tom Kelly: Well, it's been an amazing program. We're going to take a short break here on Heartbeat. We'll be right back with Jürg Capol and we'll dive into more details of the upcoming Biathlon World Championships in Lenzerheide. Lenzerheide. We'll be right back on Heartbeat.

[00:34:18] Tom Kelly: And welcome back to Heartbeat. We're with Jürg Capol, the CEO of the upcoming Biathlon World Championships in Lenzerheide. And you're. Let's. I want to talk about the World Championships first, kind of as a concept that in the sport of biathlon, much like many other winter sports, you have the season-long World Cup competition where athletes are going to events weekend in, weekend out, the World Championships, though they stand alone in the middle of the season. What is the importance of the World Championships in sport, specifically in biathlon?

[00:34:57] Jürg Capol: I would say in this case a 12 days festival. You might build up more for a 12 days event. You have, from the competition side, of course, you include all their format, what biathlon has. Whatever. If it's mixed or if it's single, single mixed relay, if it's mass start, whatever. Biathlon has in his World Cup stages. On the World Championships, you have all of them. And I guess the the key issue or the success about biathlon is actually the shooting range. What you see what happened there because you understand immediately if one fails, he did a mistake. It's the penalization is brutal. I would call it when you do it in alpine skiing, you have a miss, maybe one gate. You're still okay, or you can catch up later on. But here, one mistake can be brutal or you can lose a lot of positions. Of course, the opposite as well. If you have a good shooting, you can also win a lot of positions. And people like this show, it's like a crime and you know exactly when the crime is happened. And I guess in Germany or which is the neighbor country of Switzerland, they know exactly how it goes or they like it. Switzerland has to to show this crime story or this event. Sport is also entertainment. But this entertainment is easy to understand because if it's TV wise or it's if you're at the venue, you get the point and you get the correct information, you see immediately what the consequence is based on the leading or is is always a leader which comes to the shooting range, which a fast time or and he loses position because his shooting was bad.

[00:36:38] Jürg Capol: I would say that's one part. And the other part is our, the whole fan village. What activity you have before. And, of course, in a 12-day event, you build up a lot more around. We bring the fans early on side. We have even public viewing to Saalbach, which has the Alpine Ski World Championship in the parallel time. The first four days which we have that we show up, we can be the fan in our fan chalet. We build up the biggest fan chalet in Switzerland, which ever happened. So you celebrate one Championships, you go to the venue, you celebrate the next championships in the in the regular life and the venue. Because we have always afternoon starting times local wise. And afterwards we have fans from more than 24 nations. Now they like to to celebrate it further. They like to to have a common easy time to have some music. And that's afterwards. And you join with all the friends a beer and, and have a good time and then go home so that all you need to build up. And we have to make sure that your experience at biathlon events starts from whatever you can be ten hours in the fan village, totally or even more. And between you can watch a live event on World Championships level if its course or if its in the stadium. Um, with the entertainment of course in sport it's it's an important part and because you know when the entertainment will happen in sport it's easy to, to to do the setup as well.

[00:38:10] Tom Kelly: How many spectators are you expecting in Lenzerheide?

[00:38:15] Jürg Capol: As I said, we don't have, in this case, uh, a lot of spectators which visit a World Cup so far, which come from Switzerland. So there is a kind of a Swiss person. World Championships is new that I have to say. It's like kind of if you if you did it for ten times, you know where they are from and who is coming. But here we have really to to build up a new community of of of of biathlon fans in Switzerland, which joins an event if it's World Cup or World Championships. So that's the, the part. But so far we, we sold almost 50,000 tickets. We have a budget reach which is about 60,000. So we're optimistic to reach that. I believe we can even do more. But as a as a beginner in this case, in this Python world, it's it's important to create an atmosphere to be on a certain level. It's, of course, in Oberhof or Antholz you might have more spectators, but they have a longer tradition. They have a fan base, which we don't have today. Of course, we have international persons which are coming. But, in other hand, as I said, February is a high season of the of of of of the tourist destination. We can maybe convince a lot of ski guests which are here doing their ski vacation to say yes, maybe I join an afternoon at the biathlon arena. Happy to do so. And I'm positive we will generate more traffic to the stadium. That I'm positive. And, um. But what? Where we will end. That's the most interesting part. We have a budget target which we need to reach, which is which is about 60,000. And if we reach that, of course, it's in the sense of the budget or of the whole financial part. It's an important part, of course, but the ticketing via B ticketing is an important part to generate as well.

[00:40:06] Tom Kelly: I want to talk about sustainability in a number of different ways. But first, since we're talking about spectators, what do you have for a transportation plan to get the spectators up to the village of Lenzerheide?

[00:40:20] Jürg Capol: You have to know there is no train to Lenzerheide directly, so that's only buses which are coming up. Or is a road. In this case, there is no other transport system which we have. So on the road, of course, it's two lines, 1 in 1 one up and one down, not more, but you have two directions. But as I said, when February is here on a weekend is already quite a high number of traffic. What we did, the first part is to extend the public transport that we have more, because in our World Championships ticket, I would call it the surrounding of 25km around the arena. All public transport is free or is included in this case in Europe when you have a World Championships ticket and we we try to avoid, uh, private private car, private visitors because there is no parking space directly in the arena. We don't have it. And all the parking lots from the cable car companies, I hope for them they are quite full in February, as already they don't need the spectators of of the World Championships in Biathlon at their parking lots. So therefore in the valley we have a big parking lot and there we have shuttle buses, which brings up the, the audience on the opposite way, the kind of anti-cycling way from the south side that to avoid the main traffic jam between Chur and Lenzerheide. So we go from south side. We let them drive longer on the highway and then from the highway we let them park and from there we use shuttle buses. And then you need enough shuttle buses, of course.

[00:42:01] Tom Kelly: Are you able to come into Lenzerheide from both directions then?

[00:42:06] Jürg Capol: You can. Exactly. You can go from both sides. When you would. Whatever, when the cheapest tells you probably go the shortest way is directly to up from Chur. But when you have of course more traffic. Or it can be snowfall or whatever, and it's the E the South ways the easy way. It's maybe seven eight kilometres longer, it's not much longer, but a little bit longer to the stadium. But but it will be at the championships. It definitely will be the faster way.

[00:42:33] Tom Kelly: Just to stay on this sustainability topic. an you can you highlight any other initiatives you have with sustainability? And one in particular that I had read a little bit about was the fact that you did quite a bit of snow storage over the summer.

[00:42:49] Jürg Capol: Yes, we did snow farming, of course, and that we used as well, of course, especially on the early ski skiing in the season. Mostly was actually used there because the championships on on a later stage you could also you probably mostly you can use a snow guns as well of course, because you have a chance for bigger and longer, colder periods of course. And that we have a different system which we produce now. But the storage is one issue. But I guess with biathlon in this case in the Championships is is all kind of activities to bring use as well to biathlon sport. We have a program which is called biathlon for all which we have a laser. Laser guns in this case which we have education at school, sport, educations. We, so far we had almost 5,000 kids which got the first time an education in shooting. And of course, with when you run and shoot, maybe it's different. And they did it as a sport ... the lesson. So this program continues also after the championships and of course, to have a one experienced person, it's maybe positive, but you need a follow up when one guy or one person or one kid has fun with the sport, then you need them. You need to know to tell them where where could be more experiences or which club is active and let you do another trial.

[00:44:18] Jürg Capol: And I guess from that part there's a lot of different, smaller sustainable activities, which is regarding whatever it's on site, also with the whole buses, which try to avoid the whole transport. If you come by public system, you get cheaper entrance, um, all, all buses or whatever say buses, which brings directly up persons which within a package also avoid less, less traffic so that we try all to do of course, and of course onside with the whole garbage concept. But that's, that's already given. That's nothing special that all organizers need to work on that. But for me, it's also the development of biathlon. Sport has a lot to do. How can we generate more kids to integrate in the sport, which kind of next step we have to do to be, to extend the pyramid at the bottom. If you don't have a big pyramid at the bottom, you pyramid very, very thin. So therefore the pyramid needs to work on the bottom. And those legacy issues we have now a program which we are on the setup. We are also money, which comes one part from the Championships which goes in this legacy project. There's other other money which comes into the project, but it's it's mostly related to use and the future of use and which kind of attractiveness we need to do for the sport and the future of the sport.

[00:45:43] Tom Kelly: One last question before we get to our closing section. Just from this conversation, one of the things that has really struck me is the importance of legacy and leaving behind a fan base in Switzerland, more young kids interested in biathlon. That's a pretty big motivator for you with the World Championships, isn't it?

[00:46:06] Jürg Capol: Exactly. I like new projects. I like to be pioneer. I like to implement something new. And as it was the first time, the championships, the first World Cup, of course it's always interesting. Do it. The first time it was like to ski. The first time was maybe the most funny one, but it was also the most challenging one. But it was the most interesting one to start with the story. And here, not the not. We develop biathlon as such, but we developed the biathlon in Switzerland, of course. And to create, if it's on the base of fan that we have more followers to to increase the sport interest in general to. To increase the interest for kids and think the combination between shooting and running or water or breathing, breathing and shooting can be very interesting. And so that's many, many aspects which can be interesting. And then of course, the fan base with the championships, you have to do have the chance to to have when I said until one year ago, maybe 1,000 Swiss persons visit the World Cup, then I want to say at least after the Championships, 50,000 Swiss persons visit the Championships at least. So that's a kind of a development. And so of course, increase of interest of a sport is a key, key issue to survive on. The best.

[00:47:25] Tom Kelly: We're going to close it out with a section called On Target where I have your just a few short, I hope simple questions for you and I'm going to start it out I think pretty easy. What's your favorite restaurant in Lenzerheide?

[00:47:43] Jürg Capol: It's Nino's. It's more a bar where you can have some, some some easy junkie food.

[00:47:48] Tom Kelly: That's perfect. And what's your favorite Swiss beer?

[00:47:53] Jürg Capol: Calanda. It's our national partner.

[00:47:57] Tom Kelly: So you have to have that as your answer. Who is a sport hero for you as a young boy growing up in Chur?

[00:48:08] Jürg Capol: First, regarding alpine, Swiss athletes were good. So it was Bernhard Russi at that time and Mister Collombin, which were both good Downhillers number one and two at the Sapporo Games, 72, which I grew, which I stand up to watch it an early time on Swiss time at that time. But I watched the race live when they won the gold and silver medal and they were about Or Bernard was at that time. He was the champion in this case and was winning the gold medal. So from that point I had them when I started more in cross country. Of course, I had guys like Juha Mieto, Thomas Wassberg, which which I was thinking they're great skiers and good natures and I like to follow them.

[00:48:52] Tom Kelly: By the way, I was one of the stadium announcers in Lake Placid in 1980 when Thomas Wassberg and Juha Mieto went at it, and one of what I think still is one of the greatest races in cross-country skiing history.

[00:49:07] Jürg Capol: It's definitely so ... that was so tight. I cannot be tighter in this case. And what happened that Mr. Wassberg, uh, shared the medal or he, he he he cut it in two and he gave a half of the gold medal to Mr. Mieto. So that was another story, but that's Thomas Wassberg.

[00:49:28] Tom Kelly: So tell us about tell me about the Grand Patrol race that you competed in in the last year or so?

[00:49:37] Jürg Capol: You mean Patrouille des Glaciers?

[00:49:39] Tom Kelly: Yeah. You have to. Yes. That one. You have to pardon my English translation.

[00:49:45] Jürg Capol: Yeah. but that's the French expression. It's in the French Swiss part, to be honest. And it's a, it's a kind of a ski randonee experience which you go from Zermatt to Verbier. And it's also it comes to the military in this case. And earlier you had to go with the military equipment. Almost. Today they are the best are going for with with light equipment and doing this ski. And you go up almost to whatever the highest point is, maybe three five and you ski you 4,000 meter or 4,200 and ... And um, even it's in whatever the second part of April, of course, the situation in Zermatt at the start and sixth of the 1,600 meters over sea level can be different when you're whatever four hours later on, almost 4,000m over sea level. It can be plus five and up. You have -15 and a strong wind in this case. And if you do it by three person, so you're not alone. But for me it was not to be the best or the fastest. It was the experience with friends, with friends. Nevertheless, you have to be prepared a little bit because you it takes you whatever 8 or 9 hours to, to to be in this competition. I mean, you're not always at, at your limit, but because of the length, of course, you get a certain you have some tired moments, but because in between some other colleagues are better than you, they will they will push you or take you a little bit on the rope and they bring you up.

[00:51:18] Jürg Capol: But it can be that one is is not good for after five hours and maybe two hours later is the guy which was the strongest two hours ago, which is maybe not the best. So it's a kind of it's a team event at the end and you have to finish as a team again with three. And when I did it last time, that was in 22, I believe. Um, then it was also beautiful conditions. We could do a lot of skiing and nevertheless the snow was not so much snow. So we had a lot of hiking passes as well. And I had, I guess a few weeks before I had Corona as well. So I was not in my best shape, I would say. And after half of this, this, this, uh, it's still a competition. I was saying, what the hell I do here? But then I got, I got some better moments again. And after whatever, one hour later, I was better again. And we survived. Well. And we had a nice beer at the finish in Verbier.

[00:52:17] Tom Kelly: Beautiful. I am really amazed at events like that. That is unfortunately not for me. I'm going to close out with one final question. You are the head of head of the World Championships. It's coming up on February 12th. If you look at biathlon as a sport and the experience that you're having there, can you sum up what biathlon means to you in just one word? Just one word.

[00:52:44] Jürg Capol: Prime time.

[00:52:46] Tom Kelly: Prime time.

[00:52:48] Jürg Capol: Prime time. Because entertainment.

[00:52:52] Tom Kelly: Beautiful. That actually is a perfect response. Uh, your couple. You have been a legend in sport. What you've done in cross-country and now leading this effort for the Biathlon World Championships. It's an honor to have you here on heartbeat. We wish you all the best when the championships come up in less than two weeks. Now on February 12th. Thanks for joining us on Heartbeat.

[00:53:15] Jürg Capol: Thank you. And see you soon again. Hope you follow many of you from the from the results of the US team as well of course.