Multiple World Cup and Olympic gold medal-winning skier Tina Maze will be the official face of Eurosport winter sports and Olympic Games coverage as the network moves closer to the Pyeongchang Games in 2018.
Eurosport parent Discovery Communications purchased the rights last year to the Olympic Games from 2018 to 2024. Its first broadcast will be the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeonchang, South Korea.
Maze, an Olympic gold medal and World Cup champion skier joins other top winter sports athletes on the Eurosport team including triple Olympic gold medallist biathlete Michael Greis and Polish ski legend Adam Malysz. Maze had earlier announced her retirement from the sport after a 17-year career. She is set to officially bow out of competitive racing at January’s Alpine Skiing World Cup event in her home town of Maribor, Slovenia.
Maze will draw on her experience to conduct pre- and post-race interviews with athletes and provide on-the-ground tactical and strategic analysis throughout the course of the season.
“I’m thrilled to be joining the Eurosport family and am grateful to be given the opportunity to continue my career within the sport I love,” Maze said in a statement. “Nothing will replace the adrenalin rush of competing at an Olympic Games or World Cup event, but this is a new chapter in my life, one I am excited about, and I hope to give fans a different perspective of the action during competition time.”
In June 2015, Discovery Communications and the International Olympic Committee signed an agreement that will give Eurosport exclusive television and multi-platform broadcast for 50 countries and territories in Europe for the next four Olympic Games, including the Winter Olympics in Pyeonchang 2018 and Beijing 2022.
“At Eurosport, we pride ourselves on being the home of winter sports, presenting every World Cup and World Championship in every major winter discipline,” Eurosport CEO Peter Hutton said in a statement. “Adding Tina to our team of experts will give fans a first-hand insight into skiing at the very top level. “Tina is an important signing for us as we build towards the Olympic Winter Games. She is a unique character who is never afraid to share an opinion and I speak on behalf of everyone at Eurosport when I say we are all looking forward to working with her in the coming months and years.”
Kicking off with the FIS Alpine World Cup in Soelden on Oct. 22,Eurosport will broadcast more than 800 hours of live and delayed coverage between October and April with every alpine skiing, biathlon and ski jumping World Cup stage shown live or delayed on its channels. In total, 11 World Championships across all major winter sports will be covered on Eurosport this season. Eurosport will supplement action on the piste with Wintersports Extra, a magazine show broadcast every weekend and re-capping all of the best action from winter sports across the world as well as showcasing the all of the drama from the world of figure skating, curling and speed skating over the course of the next six months.
Tina Maze Career Highlights: Olympic Gold Medal, Sochi 2014, Downhill; Olympic Gold Medal, Sochi 2014, Giant Slalom; 2013 World Cup title; World Championship Gold Medal, Beaver Creek 2015, Combined; World Championship Gold Medal, Beaver Creek 2015, Downhill; World Championship Gold Medal, Schladming 2013, Super-G; World Championship Gold Medal, Garmisch 2011, Giant Slalom; Olympic Silver Medal, Vancouver 2010, Super-G; Olympic Silver Medal, Vancouver 2010, Giant Slalom; 26 World Cu
