Austria: New 5 Euro Silver Coin Marks Prestigious FIS World Cup Championships In Sölden

The 48th FIS Alpine World Ski Championships 2025 will take place in Saalbach, Austria and from the 4th to the 16th February 2025. The event is highly anticipated by Austrians, competitors and spectators alike with preparations already underway. It has been 34 years since Saalbach hosted the legendary World Ski Championships in 1991, and 2025 is expected to be no less exciting and eventful. The Alpine World Skiing Championships is festival of skiing sports which will take place at the Skicircus Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang Fieberbrunn, the winter sports area in the Austrian federal state of Salzburg.

The Alpine World Ski Championships organised by the International Ski Federation - FIS, is considered the premier competition for alpine ski racing after the quadrennial Winter Olympics. The inaugural world championships in alpine skiing was held in 1931 and organised as an annual competition to be staged in Europe, until interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Thereafter since the event’s restoration in 1948, the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships became a bi-annual event. From 1948 through 1982, the competition was held in even-numbered years, with the Winter Olympics acting as the World Championships through 1980. However, the 1950 championships hosted in Aspen, Colorado in the United States were the first held outside of Europe and the first official championships separate of the Olympics since 1939. There were no World Championships in 1984 and since 1985, they have been scheduled in odd-numbered years and since then the event has been wholly independent of the Winter Olympics. 

For Austrians, skiing is often referred to as dancing with the mountains. Shifting your weight from side to side as one speeds down a slope is a dance-like sensation that gives a sense of enormous physical freedom. And with real dancing, the weightlessness that develops into floating between heaven and earth on a snowy slop, whether on a freshly groomed piste or dusty powder snow, triggers a permanent grin, get our hearts racing and strains most of our muscles. At times like these, we all feel like world champions as we all savour the moment, master our personal challenges and take in the breath-taking snow-covered scenery.

Designed by Helmut Andexlinger, Anna Schlindner and Kathrin Kuntner, the un-dated coin’s obverse features the helmeted head of a skier with the numeral 1 emblazoned on it, symbolising first place. The word WELTMEISTER (world champion) shown in stylised text is reflected on the skier’s goggles – the goal that every competitive athlete has in mind. The skier’s face is indicated purely through the coin’s contours and by snow crystals in the background. The standard reverse design on copper and silver versions depicts each of the nine cantonal coats of arms arranged in a circle on the value side of the nine-sided coin. The crests are surrounded with the text REPUBLIK OSTERREICH along with the denomination of 5 EURO, the numeral 5 is centred.  

Available from the 16^th October, each select BU silver coin is presented in a blister-type folder with illustrations and text describing the coin’s motif. The uncirculated copper coins are sold without packaging and are available for their face value. For additional information, please visit the e-webshop of the Austrian Mint.