After three weeks and as many canceled races, the best skiers in the world finally started their season, this Saturday in Gurgl, Austria. Too much wind in Sölden (Austria) at the end of October, too much snow in Zermatt (Switzerland) last weekend: three weeks after the start of the Alpine Ski World Cup, the men have not yet been able to unlock the counter points and repeated postponements have rekindled the debate on adapting the competition calendar to climate change.
Precisely, to raise awareness about global warming, a group of activists from the environmental movement “Letzte Generation Österreich” managed to enter the finish area of the slalom, the only race on the program in this small resort in Tyrol, which is hosting for the first time the World Cup, just after the passage of the local Marco Schwarz. The demonstrators, booed by the public, arrived with several banners and sprayed the arrival area with orange paint. The race was immediately stopped.
A situation which infuriated Henrik Kristoffersen, winner of four big globes, who wanted to fight with one of the demonstrators, while they were being evacuated from the area. “These idiots are destroying the race,” the Norwegian told media outlet NRK. This is so disrespectful. »