Nordic skiing Worlds to be streamed live

The 2017 World Para Nordic Skiing Championships in Finsterau, Germany, will be shown live alongside live results at www.finsterau2017.com from 10-19 February.

The last major Championships ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Paralympic Winter Games will feature 38 medal events across men’s and women’s visually impaired, standing and sitting categories.

Biathlon individual, middle distance and sprint, and cross-country middle distance, long distance, sprint, mixed relay and open relay races will be contested.

Around 135 of the world’s best skiers from 25 countries are expected to compete.

Craig Spence, Director of Media and Communications for World Para Nordic Skiing, said: “We are very pleased to announce that we will be able to offer a livestream, which will not only ensure fans of the sport can follow the action, but will also attract new ones in the lead-up to next year’s Winter Paralympics.”

“The 2017 Worlds are very important for the athletes to test themselves ahead of PyeongChang 2018. We expect top performances from all athletes as they give their best to win medals for their countries.”

Ukraine’s Oleksandra Kononova will be one to look out for in the women’s standing events, after sweeping all the biathlon and cross-country races at the 2015 World Championships in Cable, USA.

Oksana Shyshkova (women’s visually impaired), Ihor Reptyukh (men’s standing) and Maksym Yarovyi (men’s sitting) are other Ukrainian skiers to look out for.

As the overall World Cup rankings leader, France’s Benjamin Daviet will be the strong favourite in the biathlon events in the standing category.

Multiple world champion Andrea Eskau swept all cross-country events at the World Cup in Western Center, Ukraine, earlier this month, and will be hoping to give her home crowd reasons to celebrate in the women’s sitting events in Finsterau.

Belarus also have big hopes of winning multiple medals through Lidziya Hrafeyeva, cross-country World Cup overall rankings leader in the women’s sitting, and Paralympic bronze medallist Dzmitry Loban, in the men’s sitting.

The biathlon middle distance, individual and sprint events will take place on 11, 14 and 18 February, respectively.

The cross-country sprint races will be contested on 12 February, the long distance on 16 February and the middle distance on the last day of competition. The open and mixed relays will take place on 15 February.

All races are scheduled to begin at 10:00am (CET) on each day, weather permitting.

The broadcasting will be managed by Playo.TV as a media partner of the event.

Playo.tv is a production company which specialises in streaming sport events live on the web and TV.

Founded in 2008, the company has streamed a variety of sports, including floorball, softball, basketball, squash, ice hockey and now even Nordic skiing.

Radek Balvin, Executive Producer at Playo.tv said: “The company is well-equipped with an outside broadcast van that is capable of providing the best solutions for every sport to be broadcast to TV in a highly professional manner.

"In Finsterau the production will be set with 10 cameras, more than 3,000m of cables and the crew will include 13 of our best members. Playo.tv’s team together with the organising team has spent a lot of time preparing the camera positions to provide the viewers the best possible experience.

"You will not miss a thing thanks to the graphics especially created for the event, commentators who know the sport like no-one else and also the famous replay shots”.

Finsterau 2017 can also be followed on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram via live updates and behind the scenes videos and pictures. The information will also be available on the event’s official website.