The downhill skiers are preparing in Copper Mountain for the upcoming races in Beaver Creek. But things are not going according to plan for Marco Odermatt and Co. What's going on?
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- The speed skiers are preparing for the first super-G and downhill races of the season in Copper Mountain.
- The conditions on site are poor and make optimal preparation impossible. All nations are affected.
- Marco Odermatt fears that this could become a "dangerous problem" for young and inexperienced racers.
Helmut Krug, the Swiss coach, is annoyed by the miserable training conditions in Copper Mountain. They have to train on a course that consists of a short gliding track with six bends. "That's a far cry from what we need to prepare for a downhill race as demanding as the one in Beaver Creek," says the successful coach.
Marco Odermatt explains in "Blick": "We need just 28 seconds for a descent on this slope. Around ten seconds of that is spent on pole kicks and skate steps. That doesn't help us at all compared to the races on the Birds of Prey."
A problem for inexperienced athletes
For the Swiss speed aces around Franjo von Allmen and Alexis Monney, this is manageable, as they have already trained a lot of downhill in Zermatt and Chile. Odermatt, on the other hand, had been focusing on the giant slalom since mid-September and laments the lack of downhill days before Beaver Creek: "I did my last proper downhill training in the second week of September in Chile. That's why it would have been important for me to have had a few more really good downhill days in Copper."
Nevertheless, the four-time overall World Cup winner has high hopes for himself. Odi is worried about something else: "With the exception of our downhill group, nobody has really trained downhill internationally since the South American training sessions. The experienced athletes should be able to cope with this, but for young, inexperienced athletes it could become a dangerous problem on the Birds of Prey."
The other nations have the same problem
As the competition is also currently training in Copper Mountain, the starting position is the same for everyone. The reason for the poor conditions were the unusually high temperatures in the first weeks of November, little snow and the elaborately prepared World Cup slope, which is being spared for the four races taking place next week (women's giant slalom/slalom, men's super-G/giant slalom). As a result, the teams have only been able to use small sections recently. Austria's downhill boss Andi Evers jokes: "We are skiing longer than 28 seconds on our training course. But not because we've found a longer course in Copper, but because we're slower than the Swiss."
