Marco Schwarz, Alexis Pinturault, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde. Three ski racers who had serious falls in the past few weeks. The frequent incidents are unsettling fans and observers.
“Alarm for Kitzbühel,” was the headline in the Austrian daily newspaper “Krone” on Monday. Because next Friday the men’s downhill run is on the Streif, as the piste in Kitzbühel is also called. The Hahnenkamm race is considered the most notorious and brutal of the ski season.
But the timing this year is particularly bad, because there is once again a debate about safety and stress in the ski circuit. The background is the many falls in the past few weeks. Top stars like Marco Schwarz (in Bormio) or Alexis Pinturault or Alekander Aamodt Kilde (both in Wengen) have already been hit. Top athletes who are transported away by helicopter and leave a trail covered in blood do not exactly entice children to want to become ski racers.
Christian Höflehner, head of racing at outfitter Atomic, told the Swiss newspaper “Blick”: “If parents see more and more violent falls on TV broadcasts of ski races, they will at some point forbid their children from going to ski clubs and ski races. “
The world association president as a “real problem”?
Some say the program is too extensive and point to the double runs in Wengen or now in Kitzbühel. Others say the spectacle is becoming more and more exaggerated.
The German Alpine chief Wolfgang Maier told the SID: “You have to be able to differentiate.” He warned against populism, “there is not just one truth.” Maier sees the “real problem,” and he is not alone, in World Association President Johan Eliasch. The Swedish-British businessman interfered too much in the calendar planning and overloaded the program with departures in a very short space of time. Because it was not possible to race in Beaver Creek/USA and at Eliasch’s prestigious project in Zermatt/Cervinia due to weather conditions, the races were rescheduled – to the applause of many athletes, by the way, as every cancellation costs attention and money.
The organizers didn’t resist either – on the contrary. In Kitzbühel they are happy to be able to offer a second shot on the Streif instead of the poorly marketable Super-G. Even if the former Kitz winner Thomas Dreßen said the classic would be “devalued” in this way.
“Attractive sport seriously damaged”
Like in Wengen, where three speed races were held in addition to two training sessions within five days. “I hope this is the last time, never again!” complained even the Swiss ski hero Marco Odermatt, who won both downhill runs. Wengen should be “a lesson” “for every venue, for every association, for the FIS, that more is not always better”.
Maier is also bothered by the “higher, faster, further”, more and more action. In this way, he said, “an attractive sport would be seriously damaged. This has to come to an end because people can’t stand it anymore.”
Race director Markus Waldner made a promise to the athletes in Wengen. “In the future we will certainly not reschedule any more races, that is the case as long as I am race director.” But can he resist the constraints and a president who wants to rule everywhere?
Eliasch gave the answer long ago. The racing drivers who are under a lot of pressure, he said with a shrug, could also forego starting.