During the autumn meetings of the International Skiing and Snowboarding Federation in Switzerland last week, several significant changes were made which will come into effect from the coming season, including a new format for team sprints and an increase in prize money, according to a press release. 

New Format For Team Sprint

FIS is changing the team sprint format. The new format means that each of the athletes in the team runs individual qualifications, then their times are added. The total time is used as the basis for the ranking of the prologue. The 15 best teams advance to the heats. 

Until now, the team sprints have been run with two semi-finals. In the championships, the top ten teams have progressed to the final. With the new format, the semi-finals will be missing. 

Increased Prize Money

FIS has also decided to increase the prize money in the World Cup by 10 percent from the coming season in all World Cup races. 

The World Cup sub-committee also agreed that the extra prize money would be collected throughout the season and distributed to the top 20 overall World Cup standing athletes.

For Tour de Ski, the prize money has also been increased, this time to 326.000 Swiss Francs, equally distributed for both genders and awarded to the top 20 skiers.