CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy: Mikaela Shiffrin, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Petra Vlhova, Alexis Pinturault, Corinne Suter.
All 5 former total World Cup ski champions or Olympic gold medalists have been concerned in extreme crashes throughout races over the previous 15 days.
And they’re not the one ones.
Marco Schwarz, a former world champion who was main the general standings, didn’t even make it to January. He injured his knee on the darkish and bumpy Bormio downhill in late December.
In a season with out a Winter Olympics or a world championships, the ski circuit is hurting.
Why? Many skiers are pointing to an overloaded schedule in January after many races have been canceled at first of the season.
The International Ski Federation (FIS) scheduled two downhills for the boys at Wengen, Switzerland, and Kitzbühel, Austria, and in addition two in Cortina for the ladies. Add in a number of coaching periods at every of these venues and there’s excessive-pace, on-the-edge snowboarding happening nearly all week.
“If the strongest skiers are going down, it’s got to make you wonder,” main downhiller Sofia Goggia mentioned.
Shiffrin, who has a file 95 World Cup wins, crashed into the protection internet at excessive pace throughout Friday’s downhill in Cortina on the course for use for the 2026 Olympics. She averted a severe leg damage and wrote on Instagram she was grateful it wasn’t worse. It’s unclear when Shiffrin will return.
Suter pulled up halfway on her run, clutching her left knee. She tore her ACL, broken her meniscus and is out for the season. Shiffrin and Suter have been airlifted down the mountain.
The weekend earlier than, Vlhova’s season ended after tearing ligaments in her proper knee in a large slalom in entrance of her residence followers in Slovakia. That got here after Pinturault and Kilde had season-ending crashes at Wengen.
“Races, travel, training sessions, pressure, stress,” mentioned Federica Brignone, one other former total champion who crashed on Friday — though with out getting harm. “It’s time to reflect about the overloaded schedule.”
There have been extra crashes on Saturday in Cortina, the place American racer Bella Wright sustained bruises and a reduce on her chin.
“It hurt, but I knew right away my legs were OK,” Wright mentioned. “They’re bruised and they’re definitely going to be more and more sore as time goes on. I was also spitting up blood and I wasn’t sure what that was from. And then they told me I have a laceration on my chin.”
Racing was suspended a number of occasions for lengthy durations resulting from robust winds.
Czech skier and snowboarder Ester Ledecka was the primary racer on the course and she or he pulled up shortly into her run after dropping management.
Germany’s Kira Weidle and Switzerland’s Joana Haehlen additionally fell, and Haehlen was carried away from the end space along with her whole leg bandaged. She tore her proper ACL.
The race was finally stopped with two skiers nonetheless to begin after Ania Monica Caill of Romania went cartwheeling into the protection nets.
“Talking only about the number of races is pointless,” mentioned Lara Gut-Behrami, the Olympic tremendous-G champion and a former total winner. “There’s a ton of reasons that affect performance. True, the schedule is very full, but it’s been that way for years. Even when there are no races all the athletes go train.
“There’s more stress because of everything else surrounding the sport,” Gut-Behrami added. “Whereas before it was only about skiing, now an athlete has to multitask and worry about curating their image and marketing themselves. But the days still last 24 hours.”
The males may have a break, although, with FIS saying that two upcoming downhills scheduled for Chamonix, France, have been canceled resulting from poor snow situations.
Considering the entire latest crashes, some skiers are suggesting reduce-proof underwear ought to grow to be necessary in additional races.
Already required in parallel occasions, the reduce-proof underwear may stop racers from being injured by their tremendous-sharp ski edges throughout crashes. But downhillers don’t put on it as a result of it slows them down.
“This should be a safe improvement for all of us,” Goggia mentioned. “It should be mandatory.”
Kilde needed to have pressing surgical procedure to restore a extreme reduce and nerve injury in his proper calf, plus two torn ligaments in his proper shoulder.
Cut-proof underwear, manufactured from resistant polyethylene substances which are mentioned to be stronger than metal or Kevlar on a per-weight foundation, may need prevented Kilde’s damage. Just as inflatable airbags that skiers put on beneath their racing fits can present safety.
“It’s a no brainer,” U.S. ladies’s coach Paul Kristofic mentioned. “But there’s always people that push against these things for various reasons. There wasn’t unanimous support for the airbag either.”
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AP snowboarding: https://apnews.com/hub/skiing
(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)
