Women’s World Cup weekend in Sestriere lost due to weather

By Published On: January 30th, 2011Comments Off on Women’s World Cup weekend in Sestriere lost due to weather

Persistent snowfall and fog in Sestriere, Italy have forced race officials to cancel all women’s World Cup races scheduled and rescheduled in the area this weekend.

The fog arrived on Thursday morning, causing a delay in the first downhill training run – the only official skiing that ever took place this weekend. Friday dawned with zero visibility and the second training run was scrapped as snow began to accumulate. On Saturday (downhill race day), more fog and around six inches of overnight snow forced organizers to push the downhill to Sunday and a scheduled super combined to Monday. With a foot of snow reported on sections of the course today (Jan. 30) and lingering fog, officials called off all races here as weather forecasts call for similar conditions through Tuesday.

“On some parts of the course, it’s 20 or 30 centimeters, others it’s five or 10. It is a lot of snow and it is still snowing heavily,” FIS race director Atle Skaardal told Fisalpine.com. “Visibility is zero. This weather is going to continue through Monday. There is just no chance.”

This is the second women’s World Cup weekend to be canceled this season due to weather. Two weeks ago, warm temperatures in Maribor, Slovenia saw the course deteriorate and slalom and GS racers were lost.

As with the Maribor races, FIS officials have yet to reschedule this weekend’s races  though fitting them in before the 2011 World Championships (Feb. 8-20) in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany will be impossible.

“For sure we’re going to miss some races this season,” Skaardal said. “We have to prioritize the next organizers and the next races and be very careful with an already packed race calendar for the rest of the season.”

The U.S. Ski Team will move to their European training base of Zell am See-Kaprun, Austria to prepare for next weekend’s World Cup giant slalom and slalom races scheduled for Feb. 4-5 in Arber-Zwiesel, Germany

“It’s a pretty packed calendar and it’s tough to make up speed races, but weather is a big part of our sport,” said U.S. women’s alpine head coach Alex Hoedlmoser. “It’s nothing new to us. We’ll just pack up and head to Kaprun to get ready for the next set of races. It’s completely dumping, but luckily we have good cars.”
 
“The speed group will take a couple of days off and then get right into the preparation period for Garmisch,” Hoedlmoser continued. “The technical team has been training hard and will be ready to go next weekend in Zwiesel.”

Image by Gepa

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About the Author: Eric Williams