Photographers Blog

St. Moritz, Switzerland

By Arnd Wiegmann

In 2000 I covered my first bobsleigh world championship for Reuters in the eastern German town of Altenberg. A lot of world cups and the 2007 world championships in the Swiss mountain resort of St. Moritz followed. Since I moved from Berlin to Zurich at the end of 2007, the annual Bobsleigh World Cup in St. Moritz has been one of my favorite events in our calendar, as it combines working in beautiful surroundings whilst shooting pictures of a breathtaking sport.

But I had never tried to get a chance to feel the speed and gravity aboard a bobsled going down an ice track. A few weeks ago I asked the manager of the Olympia Bob Run Roberto Triulzi for a
permit to place two Gopro cameras on a four-man bobsled to take a video during one of the guest rides, which are offered for interested people. Triulzi agreed and I traveled to St. Moritz to meet Donald Holstein, the leader of the bobsleigh school and one of the pilots for the guest rides.

I placed the small cameras on the four-man in front of Donald and another on the helmet of brakeman Peter Liechti. Once the ride was over, I removed the cameras as my name was called out by the speaker: ‘Mr. Wiegmann, please come to the start!’. Surprisingly there was one place left in the bobsleigh and I was booked for the next ride.

The Olympia Bob Run St. Moritz-Celerina is the world’s oldest and last natural ice track. It was officially opened on New Years Day 1904 by the St. Moritz Bobsleigh Club, which was founded in 1897.

In the second part of the 19th century, St. Moritz was one of the first places in the Alps visited by tourists from Britain to spend their summer holidays. St. Moritz’ tourism business expanded sharply after Johannes Badrutt, the inventive founder of the Kulm Hotel, persuaded guests to visit the valley of the Engadin during the winter season. In order to offer entertainment for the guests, winter sporting events were created, the mountain resort was the pioneer of speed skating, curling, bobsleigh and other competitions in the Alps.

Wengen, Switzerland

By Ruben Sprich and Pascal Lauener

Ruben Sprich

The Lauberhorn, the world’s longest men’s alpine skiing World Cup downhill race, boasts 50 start gates at a 2315 meter altitude on the Lauberhorn in front of the Eiger North Face, the Moench and the Jungfrau with the Top of Europe, and ends 4415 meters later in Wengen at a 1287 meter altitude. Wengen is a small village in the Lauterbrunnen valley near Interlaken in the Bernese Overland.

I remember in 1986 when I covered the Lauberhorn for my first time. We carried the 60 kg heavy black and white laboratory and the transmitter in a big box from Lauterbrunnen in the train up to Wengen and set up in the bathroom of our hotel in Wengen. This was in addition to our skies, boots, clothes and cameras. Much more heavy was our luggage with our color laboratory in the 90s.

For several years now we have stayed at a hotel on the Kleine Scheidegg, the Bellevue des Alpes, located at 2061 meters, which is between Wengen and the Lauberhorn. Since 1999 we’ve used digital cameras. In the 80s and 90s after the race we rushed back to our hotel to start developing film, choose the pictures and make prints, writing captions on a small Hermes baby typewriter, and transmitting our pictures to Zurich or London. This year Bern based staff photographer Pascal Lauener and myself covered the races using our Paneikon software which transmits the pictures instantly after each racer to our server in Vienna where our Editor Michael Leckel edited and processed the pictures we sent in. Minutes later our clients around the world get the pictures in their systems.

Innsbruck, Austria

By Dominic Ebenbichler

The tragedy of Dutch Prince Johan Friso, who was buried in an avalanche while skiing in Austria last February and who has since been in a coma, generated the idea to shoot a story about freeride skiing and how ski professionals are trying to minimize any possible risks.

I’m lucky to have easy access to some of the best European freeride skiers as they are either part of my family or good friends with whom I go skiing with. I asked one of my cousins, Christoph Ebenbichler, who is a professional skier, if he would like to be part of this story. We discussed the riders who we wanted to work with on the story and the basic topics we wanted to cover, and decided to focus on showing the beauty of skiing in the back country combined with showing the professional approach everybody should have when skiing off piste. I contacted the skiers and they were all happy to work with me on the project.

Shooting freeride skiing requires a lot of preparation, organization and flexibility, especially in terms of getting up really early. We had to decide what time, which day and where we would go and of course we had to check the snow conditions and look at all possible avalanche risk reports.

Sports Pictures Editor Greg Bos has chosen an unusual picture from the Biathlon World Championships in Pyeongchang. Over to Greg:

I like the sense of tension, anticipation and fatigue in this picture. South Korean staff photographer Lee Jae-won captured the moment with great expressions on the faces of the two Slovenian athletes participating in a biathlon relay race.

Original caption: Janez Maric of Slovenia (R) tags teammate Klemen Bauer during the mixed relay race at the IBU Biathlon World Championships in Pyeongchang, east of Seoul February 19, 2009. REUTERS/Lee Jae-won (SOUTH KOREA)