Is Austria losing its status as a top ski nation?
Having previously cancelled compulsory winter sports for schoolchildren, Austria is debating changing tack to bring young people back to the slopes of the ski-centric nation.
The 2024 manifesto of the Austrian People’s Party (OVP) asserts that the country is at risk of losing its status as “ski nation number one”. Sport shapes cultures as much as language and skiing is to Austria what football is to Brazil. In 1972, when ski star Karl Schranz was disqualified from the Winter Olympics in Sapporo for letting his name be used in advertising, there were protests across Austria. Two of the country’s best-known crooners, Georg Danzer and André Heller, even recorded a song laying into Avery Brundage, the president of the International Olympic Committee at the time. While the tune, “Der Karli Soll Leb’n, Der Brundage Steht Daneb’n”, is still doing the rounds today and public opinion shows that skiing is still seen as one of the country’s cultural strengths, the number of Austrians who regularly take to the slopes is dwindling.
The reason for this is twofold. First, it’s costly and becoming more so. A study this year found that skiing costs in Europe have risen by 34.8 per cent above inflation since 2015, with Austrian resorts among the most affected. Second, compulsory (and free) multi-day winter sports trips for Austrian schoolchildren, known as schulsportwochen, were phased out in 1996. To boost participation, the government launched a programme that subsidised more than 1,000 pupils to participate in winter sports in 2024. But state and sporting bodies, including the OVP, have repeatedly pushed for snow sports to become mandatory again.
Austrian society is changing too. “There are many newcomer children in certain urban centres who have no experience with winter sports,” says Sonja Spendelhofer, inspector for PE and sport at Vienna’s central education authority. And while this throws up awkward questions of cultural integration, skiing remains an uncomplicated economic boon for the country. “Tourism and many areas of the economy depend on it,” says Spendelhofer. “If children do not learn how to ski, there will inevitably be a decrease in adults doing winter sports.” And where would Austria be then?
