Car-gazing, sailing on Lake Geneva or skiing this weekend: you choose
We’ll start with some photos, to help the choice
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Iced-up boat in Versoix near Geneva, 10 March 2010 (photo Peter Brodbeck)
Geneva Motor Show 2010 (image: Mr Kio)
Jura near Geneva, 10 March 2010 (photo: Shirley Curran)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The sun is shining, slopes are gleaming, the ice around the edge of Lake Geneva is melting and the wind has finally died down after a week’s drubbing. Skiing beckons, all the more so with Swiss skier Carlo Janka putting in a spectacular performance in Germany Friday morning, winning the World Cup’s Crystal Globe for the most points all season.
Weather forecast
Pull out your skis, but keep the warm clothes, including that rarity in the Swiss Alps, thermal underwear, handy. Friday and Saturday mostly sunny with highs of 5C on the plain and 7C in canton Valais, -8C at 2,000 metres. Sunday sunny to partly cloudy, temperatures the same.
Good news once you’re off the slopes: it should warm up to 10C Tuesday and 15C Wednesday. Welcome March spring weather!
Alpine resorts
It’s the winding down season, but the slopes are in good shape with recent snow and cold weather keeping it powdery.
Events in Alpine resorts this weekend: Read more…
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - World media have been celebrating International Women’s Day for much of the week, with stories about the progress made by women in the past 100 years, particularly in politics and economically. But women are conspicuously small in numbers on Forbes latest list of the world’s rich. You have to move beyond the first 10 to find a woman, and most of those in the top 20 are from the same US family, the Waltons of Walmart fame. Birgit Rausing, whose money comes from Tetra Laval, is described by Forbes as “living quietly in Switzerland”. She is part of a very small group of wealthy women whose money has almost always been inherited, the magazine notes, while men who have made their fortunes do so in family businesses to a much smaller extent.
Vancouver, Canada (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss hockey team ended their Olympic adventure with another narrow defeat to the USA. They were one goal down going into the final few minutes but then conceded a second after taking off their goaltender while searching for an equalizer. The US team now enter the semi-finals.
Links to other sites: TSR (Fre), Vancouver 2010
Vancouver, BC, Canada (GenevaLunch) – Switzerland held its own against Canada in ice hockey 18 February in the Winter Games, giving Canada a 3-2 victory, but in a penalty shootout. The Canadians were widely expected to win easily: they have a strong young team, are skating on home territory and they were still bruised from their 2006 Winter Games loss to underdog Switzerland in Torino.
Background, Washington Post
Lindsey Vonn puts on fine show
Dominique Gisin's crash affected other skiers (photo: Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images)
Gold winner Lindsey Vonn (sstock photo: ©2009 US ski team)
Vancouver, BC, Canada (GenevaLunch) – American Lindsey Vonn took gold in the Women’s Downhill at Whistler mountain, in a race marked by her excellent performance, four crashes on the undulating course and wide gaps between skiers’ times. Vonn, with a time of 1:44.19, finished an impressive .056 ahead of fellow American Julia Mancuso, who won silver. The bronze medal went to Austrian Elisabeth Goergl, a full 1.46 behind Vonn. The best performance by a Swiss skier was Fabienne Suter’s. She came in nearly two seconds behind the winner, for fifth place, a remarkable performance considering that she came close to crashing and managed to right herself dramatically.
Racers appeared affected by the series of crashes that started with Swiss skier Dominique Gisin. Her spectacular wipeout left the crowd silent while they waited, then cheered when she sat up: she walked away from the course, in tears, but on her own.
BMW Oracle team walking out to the boat Sunday 14 February before the race they won, taking the 33rd America's Cup sailing title (photo: ©2010 Guilain Grenier/BMW Oracle)
Valencia, Spain (GenevaLunch) - BMW Oracle has taken the America’s Cup sailing title, winning the second race Sunday 14 February almost as clearly as it won the first race two days earlier. The American boat finished 5.26 minutes ahead of Alinghi: Oracle’s technology, with its massive rigid sail, was the real winner. The race was close during the first leg but BMW Oracle pulled ahead and the winner was never in doubt.
Links to other sites: Alinghi, America’s Cup, BMW Oracle
Swiss train on a winter Sunday evening: always busy
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s CFF rail company will raise prices by 6.4 percent overall 10 December 2010. The recently voted increase in value added tax (TVA) of 0.4 percent is included. The Public Transport Union announced the hikes Thursday 14 January. The amounts of some of the changes come as a surprise, but higher than normal increases have been predicted widely because a year ago the government insisted that increases for 2010 be put off because consumers were hurt by the weak economy.
The half-price CFF card, the most popular discount, will be increased from CHF150 a year to CHF165. It is the first increase for the card since 1993.
Alinghi in November 2009
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Sailing’s biggest race might just happen after all: Alinghi and the Société Nautique de Genève have published the draft Sailing Instructions and Notice of Race for the 33rd American’s Cup. The race opens 8 February in Valencia, Spain. The two published draft documents have been sent to the BMW Oracle team, against whom Alinghi is expected to race. The two have been locking in legal battles for several months over a number of issues, including the size and other details for the boats.
The draft Notice of Race provides details for the boats in section 7.
Draft Sailing Instructions, America’s Cup 2010 and Notice of Race
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Next year, 2010, expect to work more if you live in Switzerland. The calendar, points out 20 Minutes, is doing workers no favours, with at least four and in some cantons up to six fewer holidays, thanks to several of them falling on weekends. The first non-holiday holiday is 2 January, normally a day off work in French-speaking cantons, but this year it falls on a Saturday.
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© Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
Doris Leuthard, Swiss president in 2010
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Doris Leuthard becomes president of Switzerland in 2010. The 46-year-old PDC (Christian Democrat) member was elected comfortably (153 of 187 votes) by parliament for the top job, a one-year post that is rotated among the seven cabinet members, the Swiss Federal Council. She is the only member of the council not to have yet held the post. She was in line for the job, as vice-president in 2009, but nevertheless needed the approval of the Federal Assembly, parliament’s two houses. Leuthard becomes the youngest president since 1934.
Leuthard is the third woman to serve as president of Switzerland: Ruth Dreifuss was the first, in 1999 and Micheline Calmy-Rey the second, in 2007.
Outer and inner faces of the 2010 Swiss autoroute sticker
Neuchatel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Drivers have until the end of January 2010 to put them on their cars, but the 2010 Swiss autoroute sticker, called a vignette in French, goes on sale today. The background is metallic orange and the date reddish-brown. The CHF40 annual road tax has been sold at the same price since it became law in 1985, managed by the Swiss customs office.
The proof of tax paid sticker must be displayed by cars but also trucks and motorbikes on the autoroute.
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Economiesuisse has revised upwards its forecast for the Swiss economy for 2010. In June 2009 the umbrella organization for Swiss business had predicted a 2.9 percent drop in Swiss GDP (gross domestic product) for 2009 with a further drop of 0.8 percent in 2010. The group published revised figures Monday 23 November, saying it expects to see growth of 0.7 percent next year, and export growth of 3.8 percent after a year that has proved very difficult for some exporters.
Background: Economiesuisse lowers growth forecast, unemployment to climb, GenevaLunch, 15 June 2009
