AUSTRIA:
Season-ending crashes for 2 of the largest names in alpine snowboarding have laid naked the “brutal pressure” of World Cup downhill racing, with organisers going through criticism for packing rescheduled velocity occasions into an already-charged calendar.
Norway’s Aleksander Aamodt Kilde (dislocated shoulder, minimize calf), France’s Alexis Pinturault (knee) and lesser-known Swiss racer Marco Rohler (knee) all sustained accidents over the previous week in Wengen which have put an finish to their time on snow for this 12 months.
It’s a worrying precedent, given the skiers’ enviable monitor data: Kilde and Pinturault have notched up a mixed whole of 55 World Cup victories alongside 10 world championship medals and 5 Olympic podium finishers.
There isn’t any time for his or her rivals to dwell on collected fatigue, nevertheless, as the lads have instantly decamped to Kitzbuehel, dwelling to arguably the hardest downhill course on the circuit. There are two downhills and a slalom on the programme beginning Friday.
“It is a brutal pressure,” Swiss racer Niels Hintermann mentioned of the week in Wengen, the place the FIS — the worldwide ski federation — added one other downhill race to make up for one cancelled in Beaver Creek.
It meant racers needed to cope with two downhills and a super-G, together with a slalom, over 5 days of heady competitors that additionally included coaching runs on the Lauberhorn.
It did not assist that the downhill and super-G programs are the longest of the circuit, that means among the many most bodily demanding.
Kilde, final season’s downhill champion and 2020 total World Cup winner, had a horror fall within the second downhill race, during which 12 of the 57 racers failed to complete and three didn’t even begin.
“The times are additionally very lengthy,” reckoned Beat Feuz, the reigning Olympic downhill champion and a number of World Cup winner in Wengen and Kitzbuehel who’s now an analyst for Swiss SRF tv.
“For the racers, they do not simply begin with the race and do not finish instantly afterwards. It is loads, a mammoth programme.”
The result of shedding gifted racers like Kilde and Pinturault might power FIS to not reschedule races cancelled earlier within the season into tight speed-focused weeks, maybe opening up the potential for staging them later within the season.
“Sooner or later, it’s completely vital to keep away from holding three velocity occasions in a row on the similar location,” mentioned FIS race director Markus Waldner.
“That is actually too heavy for almost all of the beginning area. It’s not good to power one thing into an already overloaded calendar.”
“To see a pal crash like this, it is at all times very, very unhappy.”
France’s second-placed finisher Cyprien Sarrazin added: “Three days of racing right here, to complete by the longest (downhill), it is an excessive amount of, a lot an excessive amount of.