No men’s reschedule, ladies may recover Levi slalom in Aspen or Are

Single pole slalom was set to make its testing debut on the World Cup during the women’s race in Levi, Finland, on Nov. 14 which was subsequently canceled due to warm weather. The FIS has decided to implement the new gate strategy at the women’s slalom race in Aspen, Colo., on Nov. 29. Although single pole slalom is popular in FIS racing worldwide, the World Cup has yet to adopt the use of only one pole in the discipline.

FIS officials still hope to recover the women’s slalom race from Levi and two early candidates have emerged as potential hosts. The women’s technical racers will head to Aspen for giant slalom and slalom races scheduled Nov. 28-29, and an additional race could be added prior to the contest. Over this weekend’s FIS Council meeting in Oberhofen, Switzerland, the Swedish Federation also emerged with a bid to replace the event in Are around their scheduled weekend of women’s racing Dec. 12-13.

The men’s race from Levi will not be rescheduled due to a packed calendar and a lack of need to replace the slalom event.

“It makes no sense to toss this slalom in just anywhere. For men, we had 11 (scheduled) slaloms anyway which was somewhat overloaded. We can live very well with 10 races, and Hannes Reichelt will be satisfied,” FIS Race Director Markus Waldner quipped to the Austrian Press Agency. Speed specialist Reichelt has been vocal about the disproportionate number of technical races on the World Cup calendar favoring slalom and GS skiers.

The women had only 10 slalom races on their original calendar, and a formal announcement about the replacement race is expected soon.