Cross-country skiing Balkan Cup
The Balkan Cup (German Balkan Cup ) is a cross-country skiing series organized by the FIS .
General
The Balkan Cup is one of the current nine Continental Cup series as a substructure for the cross-country skiing world cup . Athletes with FIS licenses from all nations are entitled to start and score points in the Balkan Cup; However, only athletes from the states of Albania , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Greece , Croatia , Serbia , Turkey , Montenegro , Macedonia , Romania and Moldova can achieve a World Cup participation through their placements. The allocation of points for races of the Balkan Cup corresponds to that for World Cup races, i.e. H. the 30 best placed athletes in a race receive points, starting with the winner with 100 points up to the 30th who receives one point (see FIS points system ). In addition to the senior class, the Balkan Cup also features junior and U23 races.
history
The history of the Balkan Cup goes back to the 1970s, when the ski associations held joint Balkan Ski Championships . In addition to Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Turkey were already among the starting nations. After the championships lost their importance after 1990 and the political situation in the Balkans prevented further events, individual states began to hold competitions as the Balkan Open Cup . At the FIS Congress 2002 in Portorož , Slovenia , talks began between the associations of the Balkan region and Turkey about the joint hosting of the Balkan Cup under the responsibility of the International Ski Federation. After an initial discussion during the Nordic World Ski Championships in 2003 , the responsible officials Bengt Erik and Peter Petricek decided to bring in the Balkan Cup for one of nine Continental Cups for the 2004 FIS Congress in Miami . It was decided to introduce it there, so that the Balkan Cup has been held annually since winter 2005/06. After the cup became more and more a success and it promoted the development of cross-country skiing in the region, it was decided in the winter of 2013/14 for the first time in a long time to hold the Balkan ski championships in cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, snowboarding and ski jumping.
