By Teemu Virtanen
BSV Pro Team from Switzerland participated in three Visma Ski Classics events last season; Kaiser Maximilian Lauf, La Diagonela and Engadin Skimarathon. The team’s primary focus was on FIS races, but the upcoming season will change that. The Swiss squad is ready to put their sole focus on the Visma Ski Classics pro tour.
The pro team consists of young athletes, and they have a five-year plan hoping to reach their full potential when the season of 2023/24 comes along. That’s when they hope to have some skiers on the podium. But that may happen even sooner as Toni Livers has promised to race some Visma Ski Classics races whenever his busy World Cup schedule allows that.
“We are happy to have Toni in our team as he is one of the biggest names in Swiss cross-country skiing,” the team’s director Markus Walser admits. “We have already had two training camps, one in Davos and the other one in Seefeld. The next one will be in Vallelung at the end of June, and we hope to find the spirit of La Venosta while there. At the end of July, we will have a camp in Sjusjøen, Norway, and in late August another camp in Davos. We will also do some summer races with the team. Then in October, we’ll start training in a ski tunnel in Oberhof followed by some early season snow training.”
It seems that the team members keep themselves quite busy over the summer and fall. One skier will also participate in Kangaroo Hoppet in Australia in August while the others are planning on doing some running races, such as a run around the lake Davos, and roller-ski events, La Diagonela’s summer race being one them, in their home region. So, the first and only Swiss pro team in Visma Ski Classics is really setting their sights on the future, but we should expect some great performances from the team even as early as next season.
