World Cup start without women: too few teams! The Chinese premiere turns into a bobsled embarrassment

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It is the most modern ice rink in the world, built for the 2022 Olympic Games in the no man’s land of Yanqing. To give the appearance of sustainability, China has now been added to the calendar as the opening stop for the 2023/24 World Cup winter (17 to 19 November).

But the premiere turns into shame. The women’s races in the mono and two-man bobsled have been cancelled. Too few teams wanted to pay for the expensive overseas trip. With three German and two Chinese teams and the Swiss Melanie Hasler (25), the minimum number of six participants would have been registered.

Mini starting field also for men

But the world association IBSF did not want to run the risk that a pilot would be unavailable at short notice due to illness, for example, and that five teams would not even be able to compete for World Cup points. But the episode is embarrassing regardless. The IBSF bosses urgently need to find a recipe to prevent their overseas races from becoming a joke. The problem became acute in North America last season, when only a few teams traveled.

Because in China there is only a mini starting field for men. But in any case, the best in the world, including the three Swiss Michael Vogt, Cédric Follador and Simon Friedli, will be present among the dozens of pilots. And because the women are now missing, the men will now start three times: twice in a four-man sled and once in a two-man sled. In the skeletal entourage also present, both sexes are at the start.

Melanie Hasler, on the other hand, travels to Altenberg (De) for training instead of China; her season now unexpectedly only starts in December in La Plagne (Fr).

Source : Blick