FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Bormio

Today’s fastest racer, the two Norwegians and last year’s winner tell us about the course

The second official training of the fourth FIS World Cup race will start tomorrow at 11.45am.

See the start list

See the fact sheet

The Austrian Hannes Reichelt was the fastest in today’s first official training of Santa Caterina DH. With 1’48 “20 he is ahead of the Azzurro Christof Innerhofer by 7/100 and 1’26″ of Peter Fill. They all started with the advantage of having trained on the Deborah Compagnoni course a few days ago together with the rest of the Italian, Austrian, as well as Canadian teams. The others were more cautious.

Few athletes know well the course in Santa Caterina with all the pitfalls and technical features of a path that hosted a Men’s World Cup race for the first time just last season. In fact, few have chased speed just like the young Norwegian Aamodt Kilde did, fourth (1”43) behind Reichelt, and the Frenchman Adrien Theaux, fifth (1″93). The dominator of this first part of the season, the Norwegian Aksel Svindal, is only 31th (4”68) and his team mate Kjetil Jansrud is 21th (3″31).

Overall good news from the Azzurri: 11th place for Werner Heel (2″66), 14th place for Dominik Paris (2″92). Davide Cazzaniga from Lecco is 12th (2″88) and got a bib for the race on Tuesday. Siegmar Klotz, Mattia Casse and Silvano Varettoni will fight for the other bib in tomorrow’s training. The second training is scheduled at 11.45am. The race will be broadcasted live on Raisport 1 and Eurosport starting from 11.30am.

Captain's meeting

Tomorrow at 11.45 it’s first official training time on the Deborah Compagnoni.

See the start list

pista deborah compagnoni

The training session is going to start tomorrow at 11:30 am on the Deborah Compagnoni track in Santa Caterina. It’s the first of the two official trainings before the Men’s World Cup race taking place on Tuesday, December 29. Despite the crazy weather of this atypical winter, the track  is in perfect conditions and has already been tested by the Italian, Austrian and Canadian athletes on the occasion of last Sunday and Monday training.

The track is frozen and about 80,000 cubic meter of snow have been produced to prepare a uniform 50 centimeters thick cloak on the 3100 meters long and 55 meters wide track. It’s been a huge amount of work, and the director of the circuit Markus Waldner and the FIS downhill manager Hannes Trinkl have already congratulated about that.

Once again it’s a matter of hunting the Norwegian Aksel Svindal, the absolute speed dominator in the first part of the season with the successes in Lake Louise, Beaver Creek and Gardena. His teammate Kjetil Jansrud, the American Travis Ganong (who won last year in Santa Caterina) and hopefully the “Azzurri” should be the ones to be there hunting him.

Tomorrow 12 Italians will be on the track. Six of them (Dominik Paris, Christof Innerhofer, Peter Fill, Werner Heel, Mattia Casse and Matteo Marsaglia) are already sure to be competing. The others (Silvano Varettoni, Siegmar Klotz, Davide Cazzaniga, Henri Battilani, Emanuele and Paolo Buzzi Pangrazzi) will fight for the other available places.

Perhaps he too wanted to experience the pure adrenaline of the Deborah Compagnoni, the track of Santa Caterina (So) that Tuesday, December 29 will host the fourth Men’s DH World Cup race. But this was not a lucky suede. In fact, he was trapped in the safety nets and two customs officers working for the Alpine rescue had to help and free him .

See the video of the officers rescuing the suede

Credits: Angelo Fachin

The training of the Italian, Austrian and Canadian athletes in Santa Caterina on the track Deborah Compagnoni in Santa Caterina are over. Tuesday, December 29 the town will host the fourth Men’s DH World Cup race. This morning the athletes could count on the entire track, from Cresta Sobretta (2750 m) to the finish area (1745 m). A track that all athletes consider as very challenging.

“A track for women? Really?” that’s what said Dominik Paris. For the Austrian Hannes Reichelt it is technically and physically very demanding “It leaves you out of breath.” Yes, the Deborah Compagnoni – with the works carried out in the summer – has now higher technical features which are also enhanced by the work of the FIS responsible Hannes Trinkl.

Read the rest of this entry »

Il podio in Val Gardena 2015

Aksel Lund Svindal won the downhill race in Val Gardena. This is his third DH podium this year, after the victories in Lake Louise and Beaver Creek. And he’s definitely the 2015 dominator in Val Gardena with yesterday’s SuperG victory too!

Second place is for Guillermo Fayed (third place in Beaver Creek and fourth place in Lake Louise) and third place is for Kjetil Jansrud, (second place in yesterday’s Super G)

The next exciting DH event is in Santa Caterina Valfurva! 10 days to the race, 100% pure adrenaline and a big event open to you all : you’re all invited for free to enjoy the race live from the parterre , from the stands or near the track!

The training scheduled for Sunday, December 20 and Monday, December 21 on the track Deborah Compagnoni Santa Caterina is gonna be a great test for the Italian DH team. The slope is the one where the fourth men’s DH race is scheduled on December 29 at 11.45 am. In addition to Fill, Innerhofer, Paris, Heel and the others we’ll see the training of the Austrian team: yesterday the team accepted the invitation of the Organizing Commitee and confirmed the arrival in Valtellina on Saturday evening, back from the DH races in Val Gardsena.

The track, created to host the women’s events of the World Championships in Bormio 2005, is in fact little known to men athletes, so each moment is a valuable experience for the race. Austria too is aware of the highly technical features of the “Compagnoni” slope, an ideal ground to refine the conditions of the jet men now that the season has absolutely started.

The Austrian delegation  consists of 29 people: 12 athletes (Mayer, Reichelt, Streitberger, Kroell, Baumann, Sheiber, Franz, Striedinger, Kriecmayr, Schweiger, Waldner and Johannes Kroell), 8 coaches, 3 physiotherapists and 6 skimen. They will stay at Hotel Palace in Bormio, while the “Azzurri” team are going to stay at Hotel Rezia, in Bormio too. The training will begin on Sunday morning in Santa Caterina. Everything is ready, the safety nets are installed and the snow on the track is perfect.

Hannes Trinkl (FIS race director) Omar Galli (race director) and Tino Pietrogiovanna (track director) met during the successful FIS visit while waiting for the official confirmation. Works on the Deborah Compagnoni slope keep going on in order to prepare it for the big day – December 29 – when the fastest skiers in the world will meet in the mountains of Alta Valtellina. We look forward to know the name of the new fastest jet man!

[Show as slideshow]