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'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams' (Eleanor Roosevelt).

This week we feature an interview with Vedran Pavlek (CRO), a former world-class giant slalom and super-G racer and two-time Olympian (Lillehammer 1994 and Nagano 1998). Under his leadership since 1998, the Croatian ski team has collected 75 FIS World Cup podiums, including 39 victories, six FIS World Championship gold medals and seven medals at the Olympic Winter Games.

FIS Newsflash: You played a key role in establishing Croatia on the skiing radar screen together with the Kostelic siblings. What were the key ingredients of this success story?

Vedran Pavlek: I retired from active competition following the Nagano Olympic Winter Games and became Alpine Team and Ski Pool Director with the Croatian Ski Association. At that time, the association basically consisted of a single room full of paper and a lot of debt. However, what we had were two very talented skiers – the Kostelic siblings – who had been well-coached by their father. Our idea was to bring Janica and Ivica to the top while developing other young racers. The results of our well-coordinated efforts are obvious today: besides the amazing successes of the Kostelic siblings, we now have another two rising stars: Ana Jelusic and Nika Fleiss. All this would not have been possible without a lot of hard work and very talented skiers along with good management, excellent equipment and solid support in all related areas.

FIS Newsflash: With Janica officially retiring this spring, how does the future look for Croatian skiing?

Vedran Pavlek: The future looks bright. We already survived one season without Janica, and enjoyed good performances by Ivica in the World Cup and the first podium place by Ana Jelusic. There are another couple of young racers coming. Granted we are unlikely to have another athlete like Janica but I think we will be able to continue to achieve solid results in the World Cup in the future as well. In the ladies, our goal is to have two racers in the top 10 and a few others in the top 30. We are currently a bit more focused on the ladies as they tend to reach the top at a slightly younger age than the men.

FIS Newsflash: The Snow Queen of Zagreb has become known as one of the best organized World Cup events in a short time, with the highest prize money for a single race. For the first time, the ladies will be joined by the men at next year’s event. How do you deliver such a first-class event and most importantly, ensure the impressive amount of prize money?

Vedran Pavlek: Our idea from the beginning was to create a first-class event because we thought that would be the only way for us to ‘survive’ on the FIS World Cup tour in the long term, and to be able to host a combined men's and ladies' event. However, our intent was not just to create 2x 45 minutes of skiing but to combine the sports part with a lot of social events, strong VIP program, concerts and other spectator entertainment. We also believe that in some other sports, the athletes are remunerated much better than in skiing despite their relatively smaller investment in the sport so we wanted to make sure we pay them well here in Zagreb. Doing this, we have found that high prize money greatly increases the level of general public interest. Initially we had sponsors from the Croatian market place or regional (Alpe-Adria) companies based in Croatia but now we receive quite some interest on an international basis.

FIS Newsflash: What advice would you give for other World Cup organizers to optimize their event marketing and communications?

Vedran Pavlek: I think the key is to combine ski racing with a strong side program including social events and entertainment. While the initial tendency may be to try to minimize costs, we have found that investment in creating a strong brand is a long-term strategy which will generate future income if the work is properly done and the event becomes well-established. Creating a strong event brand requires a good show supported by excellent organization in all areas. Moreover, it is critical that we look across disciplines to learn from the strongest events in sports such as golf, tennis and Formula 1 and apply their best practices to skiing.

FIS Newsflash: How could the skiing family work better together to ensure that the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup remains one of the most important global series of winter sports events that it is today?

Vedran Pavlek: I believe that more should be done to integrate TV and marketing for the entire series. A key step in doing this is centralizing the management and exploitation of TV rights and, partially, also of marketing rights for the entire FIS World Cup tour. This would make the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup more interesting to the large international companies that are particularly interested in winter products.

We also need to create better events: rather than producing our events just for TV, we need to make sure we deliver a wonderful show and a true experience for the spectators on-site.

Vedran Pavlek was talking to the FIS Newsflash service