The Unimog U 430 in the cross-country skiing hall

The temperature is minus 7 degrees Celsius. Like in a cathedral, the mighty concrete pillars tower up to the roof of the hall. Between them, absolute professionals are at work – winter sports professionals. The men from the Italian cross-country skiing team do lap after lap of training. And while the US Paralympics athletes prepare for their training, the new Unimog U 430 with its Kahlbacher snow cutter loads fresh artificial snow from the snow-making facility onto a truck. The DKB Ski Sports Hall in Oberhof, Thuringia, in which the cross-country and biathlon professionals can train all year round, is the pulsating heart of the winter sports centre. The hall initiated by the German Ski Association, which was completed in 2009, has a total trail length of two kilometres on an area of 10 000 square metres.

The employee from the Municipal Maintenance Department and Unimog driver Veiko Gerber has his most spectacular assignments in the ski hall, which many people here nickname the “tunnel”: “I’ve spent many nights at the steering wheel in this hall. When not enough snow fell during the Biathlon World Cup in 2014, the artificial snow was metres high here,” says Gerber and points at the huge central hall. “We used the snow cutter to load it onto the trucks, which then took it outside to the trails.” To make sure the event didn’t have to be cancelled, artificial snow was specially transported from the “Auf Schalke” Arena to the mecca of biathlon sport. Each of the four snow-making machines additionally provided eight cubic metres in 24 hours.