This year's MWC

This season's Masters World Championships - Sappada, Italy

Why?

The World Masters is surely the only reason why you are a BMCCSA member, because the Association only exists to allow Brits to take part in it (I will ignore the possibility that, once there was no membership fee, you’ve continued your membership for no effort on your part but with no intention of ever racing!). This season we have a brand-new venue, Sappada which, like Klosters last year, is also a haunt of the rich and famous. The Masters has been in Italy before, Dobbiacho in 1991 (my very first event), Folgaria in 1997 (grim hotel, baking heat, brutal courses, chaotic results distribution); Brusson in 2006 (ribbon of artificial snow, lousy waxing facilities, good catering) and Asiago in 2013. We were almost in Cogne, too, in 2020, if that rotten virus hadn’t intervened. So this season we have the chance to return to the country for an event which, as I’ve said many times before, is the pinnacle, in terms of ski racing, which most of us can aspire to.

Great Britain was reasonably well represented earlier this year in Klosters but we lost the Imperial Memorial Trophy (ski ashes) to Australia (having heroically won it in Vuokatti the year before. So the United Britain of Great Kingdom needs YOU to turn up in Sappada so that we can win it back and, in my acceptance speech, I will finally be able to use my one Australia joke (actually I know two, but the second one is rather childish)!

Sappada has hosted top international competitions in the past, including the World Cup in 1994 and 1999, the Junior World Biathlon Championships in 1997, the IBU Cup Biathlon in 2005 and the European Youth Olympic Winter Festival in 2023. So they know how to put on good events and, as you will have seen on the front cover, Sappada is home to three of Italy’s former and current top skiers/biathletes.

Sappada! Let’s hope we get as good conditions as these!

Travel

Sappada is right up in the top north-east of Italy in the Dolomites, not that far from the Austrian border There are many ways to get to Klosters and all of them are very easy, although flying is most probably the best way.

By plane: there are two airports exactly equidistant from Sappada: Venice and Trieste at 167 km (see the map on the next page). Budget airlines fly to both, so flights should be fairly cheap. Trains from London take just over one day (Eurostar to Paris then down through France, into Switzerland via Geneva on to Udine in Italy and then a local train to Sappada itself (there are other options via Stuttgart and Munich). For myself, I will be driving for reasons given below!

Sappada, its place in the universe

Accommodation

Aha, tricky question but I’m glad that you asked it! Just like we had trouble getting accommodation sorted out for Cogne, we’re having the same problems with Sappada. Some nations (I imagine the bigger ones) have already received offers but others, including GBR, are still waiting. It has also become clear that there is nowhere near enough rooms in Sappada itself to accommodate the 1 500 or so racers, partners and others flooding in, so the latest news is that hotels will be offered in Piani di Luzza (3 km from Sappada), Forni Avoltri (6 km from Sappada) and Santo Stefano di Cadore (14 km from Sappada). So let us consider our options:

AirBNB: I have reserved a three-bed apartment right in the centre of Sappada (as far as I can tell) from Tuesday 27th January until Thursday 5th February (see below for why the time schedule is unusual). This works out at £1 100 for 9 nights, or roughly £40 per person per night. Currently there are two beds free, but I can only hold the place until Friday 12th December. So, if you wish to join me, I need your confirmation before that date.

There are a few other AirBNB places still available in Sappada itself, but they are much more expensive at above £2 300 for the

same period. You’re free to book a place for yourself and friends, though.

2. I have booked a very cheap hotel in Prato Carnico, 8 miles west of Sappada, which is just £450 for the same dates as above. Since

booking, though, I’ve been told that the room has no TV (not a big loss) and that it has poor acoustic insulation! If no one joins

me in the AirBNB in Sappada, I will stay in Prato, and because I have my car, I will be happy to share that with people wanting to

get to Sappada.

3, Back in Klosters, I made a request for 3 twin rooms in a mid-price hotel. It seems unlikely that we will receive such an offer but

there’s no harm in waiting to see. The current advice from the WMA Executive is that individual skiers may contact Elisa in the

accommodation officer (sappada@travelone.it) who will be able to assist. There may be a few rooms for small groups still within

Sappada itself.

4. Free-form 😊! I tend to use AirBNB because I find them reliable and well-priced. Other booking sites are available, though, and

you’re free to use them. Just be aware, though, that my research has not found much of good value, and only accommodation

booked through the Organising Committee (Option 2) above) is guaranteed in the unlikely case that the whole event has to be

cancelled.

Please feel free to get in contact if you wish to join me in either the AirBNB place in Sappada (by far the best option) or the cheap hotel, aapinney@ntlworld.com.

When

The event has a somewhat different timing than usual, allowing people to travel to the nearby Winter Olympics on Friday. This means that the event takes place formally from Wednesday 28th February until Thursday 5th February (departure day). Wednesday and Thursday are practice days, with the first races starting on Friday 30th January.

If you have not been keeping fully up-to-date, total distances have changed, too, so skiers M01-M06 have the choice of 10 km, 20 km and 30 km, those from M07-M09 10 km, 15 km and 30 km, and M10-M13 5 km, 10 km and 15 km. For ladies it is slightly different, so for F01-F06 it is 10 km, 15 km and 30 km, F07-F09 10 km, 15 km and 20 km, and F10-F13 5 km, 10 km and 15 km. There is no obligation to do short, medium and long races, either, you can do three races of any combination of distance and style. So the complete programme looks as follows:

On the free day, it will be possible to take a trip either to Venice (famous) or to Trieste (not famous).

Sappada is at 1 250 metres, so no problems of high altitude and snow should be guaranteed. If there is no snow (see the chart below), it has modern snow-making facilities, so it would take a heat wave to lead to serious problems (famous last words!).

Personally, I’m not convinced by the scale, because 70 mm a year for the last two years doesn’t seem very much! Multiply that by 10 and we’re talking and, instead of looking at the chart, look at photos. The internet suggests that the temperature for the end of January should be in the range of -9 oC to +1 oC so, who knows, maybe it will be a stick wax event!

The tracks

The tracks are shown below and you can see that they are all very close to the village of Sappada, with a huge collision predicted (upper centre) where all tracks come together! I can’t find any track profiles but, from memory, the hills are in the wooded area (which we didn’t visit) where the longer tracks go; the area in the meadows is flat to rolling.

The 5 km, 7.5 km and 10 km tracks for MWC 2026

Further information, entry and deadlines

The entry form is, as always, on the general website, www.mwc2026.com, entry is already open and you have to complete the entry form for yourselves. If you’ve raced recently in an MWC, you need to enter your WMA points (this determines your position on the start line), which you can find listed by clicking on the link given on the registration page.

Finally, do not forget that, up until the early-bird deadline (31st December), entry to the MWC is €220, after the deadline it goes up to €250!

And finally finally, Sappada is reputed to be the home of great gastronomy (but, then again, where in Italy isn’t?!). And, if you have a spare bob or two to burn, when we were there for the autumn meeting last year, they took us to a wine cellar in a restaurant where some of the bottles were a snip at just €12 000! If you’re spending that much on a bottle of wine, you will probably be flying there in your own private helicopter, so it’s just as well that there’s a helipad right outside the restaurant. If you’re really lucky, though, I’ll bring a couple of bottles of my home-made rhubarb wine, priced at a much more reasonable £1 per bottle, and which we can enjoy after we’ve won back the Skiing Ashes from the Australians. I will leave you with some images of Sappada and its gastronomy!