Marco Odermatt speaks openly about his respect for the Camel Humps - and still sets the clear best time on the difficult Saslong. Other racers, on the other hand, had some bad crashes.
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- There were already crashes before the first official training session in Val Gardena/Gröden, with two Italian forerunners injured. In the training itself, Austrian Stefan Eichberger suffered a torn cruciate ligament and has to end the season.
- The key section "Camel Hump" is particularly dangerous, which according to Marco Odermatt is considered the most difficult passage in the World Cup and led to several riders crashing.
- Despite poor visibility, Odermatt set the clear fastest time in training, while Franjo von Allmen made a cautious but positive comeback after an injury break; the second training session was canceled due to the weather.
The Saslong in Val Gardena/Gröden claimed its first victims on Tuesday before the first training session had even begun. The two Italian ski talents Emanuel Lamp and Pietro Broglio are at the start as lead skiers. But both crash and suffer injuries. The 21-year-old Lamp suffered a tendon injury to his knee, while the 20-year-old Broglio even had to be taken away by helicopter due to pain in his back and neck.
As a result, the World Cup athletes are also struggling with the difficult piste. It's snowing, and at times there's almost nothing to see. This is also the undoing of Austrian Stefan Eichberger. The 25-year-old had too little speed on the camel humps, landed on the opposite slope and crashed. He had to ski off with severe knee pain, only to receive the devastating diagnosis shortly afterwards: Torn cruciate ligament, torn meniscus and the end of the season.
Marco Odermatt also confirmed to "Blick" that the Camel Humps are extremely difficult to ski :"You can brake briefly before any other key section in a first training run. That's exactly what doesn't work here. If you don't give it your all on this jump, it's going to go bang." This was obviously the problem for the previous riders and Eichberger. They had too little speed, too little height to jump over the second and third bumps and then got stuck on the last bump.
Odermatt, who won the downhill in Val Gardena/Gröden last season, even says that the Camel Humps are the most feared section in the entire World Cup. And when asked about training on Tuesday, he admits: "After the jump on the camel hump, I almost shit my pants." Nevertheless, Odermatt performed perfectly in training. With a lead of over seven tenths over Austria's Daniel Hemetsberger, he set the clear best time.
Von Allmen is back
Far behind Marco Odermatt is Franjo von Allmen. The downhill world champion has lost 6.24 seconds on his team-mate, but the gap is not worrying. After his heavy fall in Beaver Creek, in which he suffered bruises on his shin, von Allmen deliberately took a break in the lower part of the Saslong: "I followed the advice of my physio after the fall in Beaver Creek and really didn't do anything for a week. That was obviously the right strategy, my shin feels amazingly good after this training run," says von Allmen.
He will probably not need the protective splint, which he had specially made, for the race: "As it worked well in training without these splints, I will probably also ride without them in the races."
From his point of view, however, training also took place in precarious conditions: "I could see almost nothing at all in the top section. It's not a nice feeling when you fly over the first wave and don't know when you're going to land."
There will be no further test run in Val Gardena/Gröden. On Wednesday, the second training run was canceled due to bad weather. On Thursday, a shortened downhill is on the program as a replacement for Beaver Creek, on Friday there will be a super-G and on Saturday the original downhill.
