Felix Neureuther Demands Changes in the Ski Scene

For a long time it was unclear whether Felix Neureuther would show up at this year's ISPO Munich. The 35-year-old retired ski racer is due to become a father for the second time in the next few days. Nevertheless, he appeared almost punctually for a visit to the outdoor company Jack Wolfskin, for which he has recently become an effective advertising testimonial, on Monday.

Later, he also stopped by the avalanche airbag manufacturer ABS, in which he is personally involved. To the question, when his wife Miriam will give birth to the sibling for Matilda (2) Neureuther answered very briefly, "Soon."

The new TV ski expert from ARD was much more talkative on the subject of what this growing family is triggering in him: "When you become a dad, every priority shifts anyway. You simply think a lot more about education, nature, earth and the future. It is simply all about sustainability."

In times of young environmental activists such as Greta Thunberg, he also keeps an eye on the world's best skiers, to which he himself belonged as an active participant until last year.

"To get young people interested in skiing, you have to offer a credible product. So why do you have to train on the glacier in July? We must be careful with our resources and protect the glaciers," says Neureuther. In his opinion, the climate-damaging training trips of the world's best ski teams to the southern hemisphere in summer can also be avoided.

In an interview with ORF, Neureuther had already brought up the postponement of the World Cup kick-off, which usually takes place at the end of October on the glacier in Sölden, by a few weeks.

Neureuther's former colleague Aksel Lund Svindal is also thinking about the future of his beloved sport at the ISPO Munich a few booths away. However, he does not consider the idea of a glacier ski ban for top athletes in summer to be feasible: "Then we would have to monitor it like the testing restrictions in Formula 1. It's unrealistic."

The two-times Olympic and overall World Cup champion as well as five-time World champion, on the other hand, brings other suggestions into play: "Ski lifts should increasingly be operated with sustainably generated electricity. And we should get as many people as possible skiing and outdoors - with the love for outdoor life comes the emotional responsibility for the future of the planet.

Felix Neureuther sees the best starting point for this in children. For ten years Neureuther has been an ambassador for the movement "Sport im Hort", since 2012 there are the ski camps of the "Felix Neureuther Ski Academy" and since 2014 he is ambassador for "fit4future" and the project "Beweg dich schlau! With this, Neureuther wants to do something against the mobile phone and computer fixation of the young generation: "This cannot be the future. Dear children, the playground and nature are much more exciting. Exercise and sports are crucial."

Of course, this is why Felix Neureuther's second child was already "outside" on the ski slopes before his birth: "It was already riding little bit in the belly".