FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup 2014/2015 A new season characterised by youth
Today Sölden in Austria saw the launch of the 2014/2015 Alpine skiing season, which for Longines will be characterised by youth. Longines is indeed delighted to offer its support to the best up-and-coming Alpine skiers through the Longines Future Ski Champions race, which will take place in Val d'Isère the same weekend as the women's World Cup races.
This year the focus will be on the female skiers for this unique competition. Selected by their respective national federations, fourteen skiers under the age of 16, from fourteen different countries, will compete against each other in a giant slalom. Each will be hoping to be crowned champion for 2014 and to take home a Longines watch as well as a trophy. The brand will also undertake to support the winner's national skiing federation to develop projects for young people.
With the same purpose in mind, Longines will also be organising, for the third year running, the Longines Rising Ski Stars prize, awarded to the best female skier under the age of 21 and the best male skier under the age of 23 who compete for the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup. At the end of the 2014/2015 season, the two winners will each receive a Longines watch, a trophy and a cheque for CHF 20,000. These two projects are part of the brand's programme for supporting young, talented sportsmen and women, which also includes the Longines Future Tennis Aces tournament, held in Paris during the French Open, and the Prix Longines Future Racing Stars, a race for young jockeys held during the Prix de Diane Longines.
The launch of the new Alpine skiing season was also an opportunity for Longines to unveil the name of its new Ambassador of Elegance, American alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin, two-time winner of the « Longines Rising Ski Stars » prize for the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 seasons. The talented athlete was also World Champion in 2013 and won two crystal globes in her specialist discipline: slalom.
Finally, the Swiss watch brand, proud of its heritage as a timekeeper for Alpine skiing events dating back as far as 1933, announced the renewal of its long-term partnership with the FIS, for which it has been the Partner and Official Timekeeper since 2006.
The Official Watch of the season will be a one hundredth of a second chronograph, the Conquest 1/100th Alpine Skiing, specially created for professional Alpine skiers as well as fans of this discipline. This model measures time at multiple intermediaries and has an intuitive analogue display that shows the time to one hundredth of a second using a separate hand. All of this is possible thanks to the latest generation of quartz movement developed exclusively for Longines.