Cycling: A report by the German press agency on Thursday morning caused a lot of conversation in the German cycling world. Accordingly, the Berlin SixDays are in financial difficulties, among other things, the popular live music has already fallen victim to the austerity measures.
The budget for the major Berlin event is around 2 million euros - but this sum now hardly seems to suffice. The head of the event, Rainer Schnorfeil, therefore appealed to the Berlin Senate: "We have lost viewers and sales. The six-day race has to be supported, otherwise we'll hit a wall.” In the course of the much-needed austerity measures, eight days before the start of the event, the live music that was so popular fell victim to the cutbacks. The background to this is the enormous increase in GEMA fees, which have more than tripled from EUR 25.000 to EUR 85.000.
However, Schnorfeil cautiously gives the all-clear in the WESER-KURIER: Although the event is not a bed of roses financially, it is not (yet) about the bare existence. In the future, however, he would like more support from the city to put the SixDays back on a solid foundation. "This outcry had to be made," says Schnorfeil. Live music will probably be missed by many fans this year.
After a crowd puller with Robert Förstemann due to injury had to cancel his participation, Jens Voigt also announced in the meantime that he would not be present at the event. "First of all, I'm not in Berlin at all, starting tomorrow I'll be with my team in Mallorca. In addition, after my hour world record on September 18th, I was no longer able to continue training and driving. I was flat and burned out. I could not anymore", so Voigt to the dpa. The ex-pro now works as a consultant at Trek Factory Racing.