Dorfmeister, Tracy and Hoch describe the San Sicario track

Dorfmeister, Tracy and Hoch describe the San Sicario trackLast weekend at the women’s World Cup in San Sicario, Italy, skiers got their first high-speed look at the 2006 Winter Olympics course. Reactions were mixed, with the downhill getting praise and the super G getting some flak from the athletes, many of whom thought it was too easy — including Hilde Gerg, who is helping to organize a petition to have it moved. Here are some more reactions to the course.

“It’s hard on the legs. It’s very long. There are so many flat parts…It’s okay. In the downhill, we all girls say that it’s okay. It has jumps inside, in some parts it can be a little turnier, but it doesn’t matter. In super-G it is still boring… We will see. Some girls make a letter to the FIS, and the first group makes the signature. We had the same problem before the Olympics in Norway. We go in Hafjell for the last race for a test, and it was so flat and it’s just from the start to the finish in position. So the girls asked the FIS if they could go to Kvitfjell. It’s more spectacular for the girls too. So they changed it. And I think we have chances to make the super G in Sestriere. For the organization, I think it’s possible when they want. Hilde Gerg asked me yesterday if I would write and give my sign, and I said yeah. I think next week it’s writing… And the super G is okay. When I go to the downhill, I want to have some feeling in my stomach, and not be afraid, but have a little bit of respect for the slope. In the last three or four years, we don’t need the respect. It’s nothing inside…Now we are happy. We have jumps in the course… [In Santa Caterina, the jump] was not too big. When you want to go make a gold medal in the downhill, you must jump and glide and make speed in the turns, and then you are a perfect winner for gold.
-Michaela Dorfmeister of Austria, former super G world champion and 2002 overall World Cup winner

“There’s a few turns, but material is going to come into play just a little bit more than in some of the bigger events we’ve been into. It’s got good jumps, and good speed for sure. The bottom is real rolly, so you have to be technically pretty sound. But in terms of technical as far as the whole course goes, I would give it about a six out of 10…When you see that Salomons doing so well with those big girls, it always makes [the athletes] wonder. But we’ll get there.”
– Jim Tracy, a coach with the women’s speed team, who has been on every Olympic course since Calgary 1988

“It is not the steepness here, but it’s nice terrain…The hill has a lot of terrain, and when we have some more snow there will be more. Here at each bump and roll you make a small jump, so it works… There was a lot of [dirt] work, and it’s finished. I don’t want to change. I’d like to make the rest with snow, because it would be impossible with the environmentalists… They are always the same girls [who don’t like the courses]. For ten years I know them. There’s not any reason [to move it]. Really.”
-Kurt Hoch, women’s World Cup race director for the International Ski Federation

Check in tomorrow to read more course descriptions from Jonna Mendes, Lindsey Kildow, Anja Paerson and others.