• Friday, 22 November 2024

Adverse conditions: ski races in St Moritz and Val d'Isere cancelled

Adverse conditions: ski races in St Moritz and Val d'Isere cancelled

Stuttgart, 10 December 2023 (dpa/MIA) — Adverse weather continued to plague the alpine skiing World Cup as it forced the cancellation of Sunday's races, a women's super-g in St Moritz and a men's slalom in Val d'Isere.

 

The men have have only been able to contest two of the planned nine races at this stage, and the women's calendar has seen three races scrapped.

 

The women's race at the famous Swiss resort was cancelled because heavy snowfall on Saturday made the course unsafe, the ruling body FIS said. Saturday's downhill had to be abandoned after 35 skiers but the result stood as 30 athletes had finished the race.

 

"The snow really covered the whole course and the race line that we kept quite clean until last night, but at the end this new snow destroyed the base. In a couple of hours, it's impossible to get this base hard enough to make a safe race," FIS women's race director Peter Gerdol said.

 

The men were also unable to ski in France after snow and then rain ruined the slalom piste.

 

"The base was actually gone, not good enough to race anymore. We tried to set the course and clean a little bit, but it was not safe enough," men's race director Markus Waldner said.

 

French organizers will hope for better conditions in Val d'Isere next weekend when the women contest a downhill and super-g there.

 

The men move to Val Gardena, Italy, for two downhills and a super-g Thursday to Saturday. The first downhill replaces one of the two cancelled Zermatt races.