27th St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow cancelled
Half a year before the next St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow is due to take place, its organiser, St. Moritz Polo AG, believes it has no option but to cancel the tournament. The reason behind this decision concerns See-Infra, the group formed specifically to oversee all issues relating to the infrastructure on the lake, which has yet to begin its work. Decisions ranging from regulatory issues, those of an organisational nature or related to safety were not communicated by those responsible at See-Infra, the White Turf Racing Association (WTRA) and the local authority in St. Moritz, if indeed the decisions were made at all. Against this background, St. Moritz Polo AG will be unable to host a tournament in its present format for 2011.
The fate of the St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow in its current format is closely linked to the local authorities, the organisers of White Turf horse racing eventsLive, which also take place on the lake, and the climatic conditions. To coordinate all of these factors, at the beginning of this year the group named See-Infra was founded – a decision-making committee comprising representatives from all the parties involved: the local authority in St. Moritz, the WTRA and St. Moritz Polo AG as a partner. St. Moritz Polo AG greatly regrets the apparent failure of this collaboration before it had even begun.
Joint planning with the local authority in St. Moritz and the WTRA failed
To date, and in spite of repeated requests from St. Moritz Polo AG, essential decisions regarding regulatory, organisational and safety aspects have yet to be taken by the local authority and the WTRA. Without these decisions, St. Moritz Polo AG cannot enter into any contracts with its partners, nor can it implement any of its concepts or work with its sponsors to plan the 27th St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow to the level of quality expected. For these reasons, the organisers have decided to go their separate ways and have, for the time being at least, cancelled the international polo tournament scheduled to take place in January 2011.
Continuous dependence on external factors
Before the foundation of See-Infra, St. Moritz Polo AG was merely a subtenant of the WTRA, who in turn had been granted the exclusive rights by the local authority to use the lake and to hold tournaments on it. As a subtenant, St. Moritz Polo AG was totally dependent on external factors regarding the existing infrastructure and the date allocated for the event. Traditionally the St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow signals the beginning of the season at the end of January. As the tournament has grown and requirements have increased, it is important for St. Moritz Polo AG to be able to work in a flexible way regarding the infrastructure.
The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH) examined a study into the strength of the ice sheet on Lake St. Moritz during the horse racing in February. Its results and clear recommendations indicate that when the ice is less than 45 cm thick, a thorough examination of the strength of the ice sheet is required. The ice sheet on Lake St. Moritz varies from year to year, and at the end of January, as the results show, it is often a borderline case as to whether or not the lake is able to carry the weight of the WTRA infrastructure without any safety risk. St. Moritz Polo AG has trusted its landlord’s safety regulations and has always complied with all of them. In this situation it had no influence on the infrastructure, which is clearly too extensive for the requirements of the World Cup at the end of January.
Unknown safety risk
For this reason St. Moritz Polo AG decided last year to make sustainable staging of the event its top priority. The key points in this respect will be, on the one hand, to minimise the safety risk in terms of the weight load on the lake and, on the other, to reduce the energy requirements of the St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow. As a result, in the pre-planning stage for last year’s tournament, the area allocated for the tent was reduced considerably for ecological reasons. The main pressure points were also more evenly distributed across the ice so that the tournament could still go ahead even under bad weather conditions.
Without reliable information from See-Infra concerning the measures taken by the WTRA to comply with the recommendations of the study into the strength of the ice sheet, St. Moritz Polo AG believes it would be irresponsible to stage further tournaments on the lake. The withholding of this information is thus an important reason why, until further notice, the 27th St. Moritz Polo World Cup on Snow cannot take place.