Start of ski worlds moved to Thursday as heavy snow, fog, bad forecast causes havoc
The Associated Press | Posted: February 9, 2021 4:05 PM | Last Updated: February 9, 2021
Event to be completed Sunday with men's downhill in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
The start of the skiing world championships has been pushed back to Thursday.
Heavy snow, fog and a bad forecast wiped out the races that were scheduled for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
Organizers say the women's super-G will open the competition, followed by the men's super-G the same day.
Tuesday's super-G, which was to feature Canadians Marie-Michèle Gagnon and Val Grenier, would have been the first race of the worlds after the women's combined was postponed Monday following heavy snowfall in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy.
For American Mikaela Shiffrin, the 2019 world champion, it would have been her first race in the discipline since January last year when she won a World Cup super-G in Bulgaria and took a 10-month break from racing the following week.
After inspecting the course, Shiffrin said she felt confident despite the lack of recent race experience in super-G.
"For sure I'm missing going out of a race start," the American said. "I want to ski well, I have a good plan, and I want to execute my plan and forget about everything else."
Conditions failed to improve
Shiffrin was regarded as an outside contender to successfully defend her title. Lara Gut-Behrami was the favourite after the Swiss skier won the last four World Cup super-Gs.
Fog limited visibility on the top half of the Olympia delle Trofane course forced the super-G to be postponed. Organizers first delayed the race from its scheduled 1 p.m. local start and later decided to use a reserve start gate lower down the mountain.
They called the race off 90 minutes after its scheduled start as conditions failed to improve.
The coach of overall World Cup leader Petra Vlhova, Livio Magoni, believed organizers missed a chance to stage the race when the sun was still out.
"They waited too long before deciding to lower the start. They could have taken advantage of a small window when it was clear," Magoni said.
More snow is in the forecast for Wednesday, prompting the men's combined to be pushed back to next Monday. It will be on the same day as the women's combined.
No racing will be held Wednesday, with downhill training slated for Friday and the women's race will follow on Saturday. The men's downhill is scheduled for Sunday.