2023-12-10 14:57:11
From our sofa, this Sunday, December 10, it seemed playable. No wind, no heavy snowfall. A blank day, yes, certainly. But the face of Bellevarde, outlined and lit by the white light of the street lamps, seemed ready to offer itself to the spatulas of the best slalom skiers in the world. Except that on Saturday evening, around 7 p.m., the snow turned into rain. And worse still, the wind blew all night on this fragile snow cover. A dangerous combo that spelled the end of the game.
The FIS announced this Sunday at 8:20 a.m. that the Val-d’Isère slalom, the first and second rounds of which were scheduled for 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., would not take place due to weather conditions. The surface, not compact enough, made the race dangerous and did not allow the athletes to start in fair conditions. Out of the nine events at the start of the season, this is the seventh race canceled for men.
“I’m super disappointed, plus we didn’t expect it,” admits Clément Noël at the microphone of La Chaîne L’Équipe. The weather isn’t that bad, there’s a bit of wind… The snow conditions shouldn’t be enough to launch everyone safely. I am disappointed and a little confused. »
“They take the safety of the athletes very seriously”
The 2022 Olympic slalom champion was awaiting explanations from his coaches who were on the track this morning. None of the athletes actually went to the Bellevarde face to test the conditions at dawn. Except one: Henrik Kristoffersen.
The Norwegian, known for not mincing his words, was critical at the microphone of Eurosport: “I think it was not a good decision to send the machines onto the track this morning,” he said. asserted. Now I can’t do anything about it. » The world champion from Courchevel, last February, admits to feeling “a strange feeling”. “We have between 4 and 10 coaches working on the track (…) I ask myself a few questions, I think we could do better, we will have to think about all that. »
Slalom skiers thought they were protected from the series of cancellations affecting alpine skiing at the start of the season. “We are the safest discipline, we are normally thrown into terrible conditions,” says Clément Noël.
“There were too many sections where it was sugar”
Conditions which caused his comrade Victor Muffat-Jeandet to suffer an ankle injury last year. The French team’s slalom rider fell during the Zagreb slalom. The event, stopped in the middle of the race, should never have taken place, the French camp complained. For Muffat-Jeandet, the cancellation is a good thing. “I think it’s good,” explains the Savoyard skier. For me, with one of the last bibs, it would obviously have been very complicated. I feel like this year they’re taking the safety of the athletes into consideration a lot, I feel like they’ve learned from their mistakes. »
“The wind destroyed the base of the track,” says FIS racing director Marcus Waldner, who had to make a decision this morning. It was too slippery to go to work without the machines, which is why we sent them. And there were too many sections where it was unskiable, it was sugar. » He admits to experiencing a very strange situation, which he has never encountered before in his career.
Slalom racers have already expressed their wish to put the race back on the calendar. Because each cancellation is one less opportunity to score points. “But no, we are not going to do anything,” affirmed Marcus Waldner before looking into the puzzle of a calendar saturated with events, forcing the athletes to make dead ends. There is not a free weekend to accommodate a cancellation that is inevitable. On the women’s side, same fight. The Super-G in St Moritz (Switzerland), canceled this Sunday morning, will probably not be able to take place elsewhere.
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