Shortened descent irritates the athletes: a Lauberhorn race that no one wants

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The mood in the field before a race on the Lauberhorn has rarely been as somber as before the shortened descent on Thursday. On the one hand, this is due to the condition of some key passages. South Tyrolean Dominik Paris says: “Since I started racing here, the Brüggli-S has never been in such a bad condition as this year. But the slope is also quite broken in other places.”

After the first training, the athletes assumed that the process would develop positively until the second test run. “But that absolutely did not happen,” says Marco Odermatt. “On Tuesday I was one of the few racers who didn’t think the condition of the track was that bad. In the second training, the conditions in Brüggli were worse than the day before.”

Wengen is not suitable for this

However, Odermatt’s performance in recent days was particularly good in this technically difficult section – the Nidwalden resident set the fastest time in the Brüggli section in both training sessions.

Yet the outstanding overall World Cup leader makes no secret of the fact that he is not a fan of the fact that a shortened descent, originally planned in Beaver Creek, will be held two days before the original descent in Wengen. «I don’t think it is a good thing if races that had to be canceled elsewhere are put on the program for the absolute World Cup classics such as in Wengen or Kitzbühel. On the one hand, an extra race devalues ​​the original descent, and on top of that there is the energy factor, especially here in Wengen.”

Niels Hintermann from Zurich adds: “The original route here is four and a half kilometers long. And the shortened version is longer than most other runs on the World Cup calendar. That is why Wengen is particularly unsuitable for carrying out two sailings in three days.”

Last year’s great dominator is weakening

In March 2022, Hintermann became the last Swiss to win a World Cup downhill in Kvitfjell. But there is a good chance that this series will end within three days. Especially since last year the great dominator Aleksander Aamodt Kilde was injured after his giant slalom effort in Adelboden (second behind Odermatt).

The Norwegian, who triumphed last year at the Lauberhorn in downhill and super-G, skipped the second training because, according to his outfitter Christian Höflehner, “he is not 100 percent fit. I don’t know if he can participate in all the races in Wengen.”

That is why experts agree that Marco Odermatt will tackle the shortened descent as the top favorite. However, the world champion once again makes it clear that this race is not of the utmost importance to him: “If you win the shortened descent here on Thursday, it will certainly not be the same as if you triumph in the real Lauberhorn descent. is performed on Saturday. »

Source : Blick