Pouring rain at biathlon, wind at ski jumpers, fog at Alpine skiing: the weather once again played a crucial role in winter sports last weekend.
It’s a vexing topic this winter sports season: the weather. This weekend also affected the athletes in different ways and not for the first time.
Wind lottery for ski jumping in Lahti
The World Cup ski jumping in Lahti could hardly be held under fair conditions. Constantly changing winds created a kind of lottery. The German Andreas Wellinger flew to seventh place as the best DSV athlete. Jan Hörl from Austria mastered the difficult conditions best and won with 266.10 points ahead of Slovenia’s Peter Prevc (264.20) and Aleksander Zniszczol from Poland (254.20). The event dragged on like chewing gum due to many interruptions – so the wind also killed the mood.
Fog in Kvitfjell – snow in Aspen
The alpine ski racers also felt the weather. The Super-G in Kvitfjell had to be interrupted for 15 minutes due to the fog and longer after the first three runners.
The Italian Frederica Brignone had the best perspective. She won in 1:37.30 minutes ahead of the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami (+0.61 seconds) and Ester Ledecka from the Czech Republic (+0.79 seconds). The interruption didn’t do Kira Weidle any good. She was unable to confirm her strong fourth place and ended up eleventh (+1.58 seconds).
Like in the laundry room: The foggy slope in Kvitfjell.
For the men, the slalom in Aspen only started an hour late. Reason: It snowed half a meter overnight in the posh winter sports resort in the Rocky Mountains. After the snow was pushed off the slopes, there were fair conditions for everyone.
Rain and fog in Oslo
The next physical state, namely water, made the biathletes’ working day more difficult. It rained off and on in Oslo throughout the weekend. That’s why the number of spectators at Holmenkollen was significantly lower than in previous years. And as if the rain wasn’t stressful enough, there was also fog. The women’s individual race had to be postponed from Thursday to Friday and the start there was delayed.
The World Championships in Nove Mesto had already degenerated into a material battle after the athletes had to struggle with significantly plus temperatures in the Czech Republic.
Doll is looking forward to better conditions
Benedikt Doll, who completely missed the mark with 72nd place in the first race in Oslo and sensationally took second place in the mass start, preferred to quickly turn his attention to the next World Cup station. Then the DSV athletes head across the pond to Soldier Hollow in the US state of Utah. “I’m looking forward to America now. The conditions are a little better there,” said Doll.
More and more ski areas are facing closure
Winter sports are in crisis. The weather is increasingly thwarting the organizers’ plans. Everyone needs to adapt due to climate change. This is becoming a danger for more and more ski areas. Because there is less and less snow falling at lower altitudes, many ski areas are threatened with closure. This is what happened on Feldberg in the Black Forest. According to research by SWR, the operators there are facing bankruptcy.
And in neighboring Switzerland, the situation in many ski areas is also precarious. Winter sports resorts below 1,500 meters have no future, believes Christoph Marty from the Swiss Snow and Avalanche Research Institute in Davos in an interview with the “Neue Züricher Zeitung”. The paper comes to the conclusion that one in three Swiss ski areas is at risk.