Little is known about the art of addressing stadiums; it is by no means a traditional apprenticeship. And so it is certainly worth mentioning that a very regular stadium visitor has now commented on the industry. “I’m happy to be away from Hochfilzen now, away from the stadium announcer, away from the noise,” explained winter athlete Vanessa Voigt, who comes from Thuringia and took part in the Biathlon World Cup in Hochfilzen, Tyrol, last weekend before she asked for sympathy on the ARD microphone: “I just want to shoot in peace and not always have to be spoken to personally on the mat. That’s annoying.”
The discipline of biathlon not only combines endurance cross-country skiing with precision fire from small-caliber rifles, there are a lot of things involved: the wind, the snow conditions, the behavior of the fans and, of course, the behavior of the stadium announcer. Vanessa Voigt, who had just crossed the finish line in fifth place as the final runner in the German relay, raised the question of whether the Hochfilzen stadium announcer had made a mistake in tone and volume.
Well, it is inherent to the sport of biathlon that many people are interested in it, especially in Germany, which is why the target shooting sub-discipline is held in not so small stadiums during World Cup competitions, such as recently in Hochfilzen and from Thursday for the first time in Lenzerheide, Switzerland . Similar to football, stadium announcers are part of the Biathlon World Cup, as are cans or cups of beer and flags of all kinds.
Karlheinz Kas also speaks up: “Very important: entertainment,” he says
In Hochfilzen, the office of stadium announcer has been held for many years by a man named Stefan Steinacher, who comes from nearby, in Fieberbrunn, and is no stranger at all – anyone who has ever been to the Alpine ski racers’ World Cup knows his voice.
Steinacher didn’t fare particularly well with Vanessa Voigt and also in the ARD broadcast. “An incredibly loud stadium announcer who talks a lot and sometimes chats about the athletes shooting, that’s borderline,” it said in the live commentary. “Many athletes also complain that they are distracted there.”
It was loud and wild in Hochfilzen, also thanks to the audience – and the stadium announcer. Maybe that’s not entirely wrong with a Biathlon World Cup – the main actors can afford competitive sport for exactly that reason: because of the spectacle.
When asked on Monday, the Hochfilzen organizing committee said: “We are sorry that Ms. Voigt felt annoyed by the volume of the stadium announcer and the sound system.” Stadium spokesman Steinacher “assured that Ms. Voigt was not personally spoken to at the shooting range.” Video recordings of Voigt’s two shooting sequences during the relay race would have verified this. In all of this, it is quite complicated to find the balance between the necessary peace and quiet for the athletes and TV teams “and the event character of a live event that many people want.” “We will definitely pay more attention to this topic than we already do at our upcoming Biathlon World Cup events.”
TV expert Arnd Peiffer tried his hand at diplomacy: When he was still an active professional himself, he and his teammates explicitly trained the sound system in the race. Someone grabbed the stadium microphone “and became the stadium announcer in Ruhpolding.”
The Ruhpolding stadium announcer goes by the name Karlheinz Kas and is something like the Stefan Steinacher of Bavaria. Kas immediately contacted the SZ after Peiffer had ennobled him on live TV as “unmatched”. From his point of view, says Kas, Steinacher is doing a “very good job”. The mix is crucial: “Inform, provide background information, convey excitement and most importantly: entertainment.” And so the art history of the stadium announcers has grown by one episode.