Coaches fight over length of Wengen downhill, even as bad weather moves inThis year’s Wengen downhill will be especially short, if it happens at all. Organizers have decided to run the race from below the iconic Hundschopf jump, a full 40 seconds lower than the traditional start.

Meanwhile a snowstorm is expected to drop up to 8 inches of new snow on the hill, threatening to cause yet another disruption in this year’s World Cup schedule.

Because of high winds, Friday’s training run started just below the Hundschopf, the narrow slot of rock through which racers pass before dropping off a dramatic jump. Organizers traditionally paint the Wengen logo on the snow where the racers land.

On Friday, Peter Rzehak of Austria had the fastest time of 1:38.96 in a shortened training run.

The Swiss air force flew in formation over the hill, and American Daron Rahlves’ entire run was followed by a helicopter bearing a friend of his who is making a film about Rahlves.

While snow and wind have torn up the schedule for the 74th running of the historic Lauberhorn, the training session Friday meant that the race could take place as planned on Saturday, providing the weather holds. FIS rules require a training run before any downhill race.

Despite winning the run, Rzehak will not be on the start list tomorrow. He lost out in an internecine battle for start positions within the Austrian ski team. Because Rzehak is purely a speed skier, he’s not a threat for the overall title. His teammate Christoph Gruber, on the other hand, is a multiple-event skier. So Gruber will start the race, despite finishing 21st in Friday’s run.

Rzehak’s teammates Fritz Strobl, Hannes Trinkl and Josef Strobl all finished within a second of his time in second, third and fourth, respectively. Josef Strobl, another “pure downhiller” on the Austrian team, has also been left off Saturday’s start list.

Overall World Cup champion Stephan Eberharter, who returned to form with a downhill victory in Chamonix, France, last Saturday, was 11th quickest, and will be among the Austrian skiers.

The course, which normally takes about two and a half minutes to run, was shortened considerably due to high winds on the upper part of the course. Because the training run began below the Hundschopf, it would violate World Cup guidelines to start from the very top, even if the weather allowed it.

Gunther Hujara, the race director for FIS World Cup, said that the race could conceivably have started at the higher “AK” start if coaches voted unanimously to do so. Hujara called the matter to a vote at the team captains’ meeting on Friday night. Germany, Italy, Sweden and Russia voted not to raise the start, and Hujara said that the race would thus have to begin beneath the Hundschopf.

American coach John McBride was visibly dismayed by the decision. Sitting in the front row of the meeting, he dropped his head in an exaggerated expression of disappointment. He then challenged Hujara to explain why the vote required unanimity.

“To start where we did today takes out two pretty technical turns and a jump,” said McBride after the meeting. “And that’s good for our guys. I think it’s a bummer. I understand the FIS reasoning, but I don’t understand why anyone else wouldn’t want to run above. It’s a little frustrating.”

McBride says he’s surprised that Italy voted for the lower start because they have athletes with good skills. He figured that they voted to benefit Erik Seletto, who proved he was fast on the flatter, less difficult shortened slope (Seletto went from the 39th start to fifth in the training run).

Werner Margareiter, the German coach who voted against raising the start, said that it was “a question of principle.” He said he didn’t want to see inexperienced racers encountering the Hundschopf for the first time with full speed. “This would allow all organizers to start from somewhere below, and if race day comes with nice weather, they start from the top,” he explained. “This means that only the big nations, the strong nations with strong downhillers, have a chance. And smaller nations, when you bring young kids in there, they are race horses of course, and they try to go as fast as possible.”

Said Eberharter after his training run, “It is very windy up there and it is not possible to start from the top. It is soft and we get a lot of tracks. We will wait and see tomorrow.”

American Bode Miller, currently fourth in the overall World Cup standings, was also cautious about the start position on the narrow course. “It is actually probably better if we start lower, even though it is not as much fun,” he said. “The last couple of years have been pretty quick. I like the track but when you run it like this it is a shame. There are some really cool elements to the downhill. We might be able to go the next one up from the jump, but we’ll see.”

Miller was disqualified in the training run for wearing his giant slalom suit, which has enough padding that it violates FIS air-permeability rules. Wearing the suit was a conscious decision by an athlete who knew that a favorable start position was not in jeopardy. Unless there is more than one training run, organizers use the World Cup Start List to seed the race, reversing the top 30 skiers in the downhill rankings. Had there been two or more training runs, the top 30 finishers in the last training run would have been reversed on race day, with the rest of the skiers seeded according to their WCSL rankings.

While organizers were disappointed that weather kept skiers off the hill till Friday’s run, Miller said, “I race so much it was nice to have a few days off, a little bit of a break.”

An extra downhill at Wengen, re-scheduled from Bormio and then Chamonix, had to be cancelled once again on Friday because winds and snow prevented training on Thursday.

That race has now been scheduled for Kitzbuehel next Thursday, in advance of the super G/downhill/slalom weekend already planned at the Austrian resort.

Men’s Downhill Training

Wengen, Switzerland

January 16, 2004

1. Peter Rzehak (Austria) 1:38.96

2. Fritz Strobl (Austria) 1:38.59

3. Hannes Trinkl (Austria) 1:39.81

4. Josef Strobl (Austria) 1:39.83

5. Erik Seletto (Italy) 1:39.99

6. Bode Miller (U.S) 1:40.13

7. Didier Cuche (Switzerland) 1:40.14

8. Rolf Von Weissenfluh (Switzerland) 1:40.21

9. Lasse Kjus (Norway) 1:40.24

10. Yannick Bertrand (France) 1:40.25