Tour de Ski

The Tour de Ski (TdS) is a cross-country skiing event held annually since the 2006–07 season in Central Europe. The Tour de Ski is a Stage World Cup event in the FIS Cross-Country World Cup. Each Tour de Ski has consisted of six to nine stages, held during late December and early January in the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. As of 2023, the prize money for the event is 770,000 Swiss francs (779,000 euros), shared out on both men and women. Men's and women's events are held together on the same days, with the only difference being the distance skied. The stage hosts changes every year, but some of the format stays the same with the diversity of competitions; sprints, mass starts, races with individual starts and pursuits. The Tour de Ski has every year concluded with two or three stages in Val di Fiemme, with the final stage where the skiers race up the alpine skiing course on Alpe Cermis in Cavalese. There are usually between 20 and 30 nations participating, with the numbers of skiers from each nation based on quotas with a maximum of 10 skiers. All of the stages are timed to the finish; the skiers' times are compounded with their previous stage times. The skier with the lowest cumulative finishing times is the overall leader of the race and wears the yellow leader bib. While the overall standings garners the most attention, there are two other contests held within the Tour: the point standings (previously called "sprint standings") for the sprinters and the climbing standings for skiers, who are the first on certain hill summits.