Status: 10/24/2022 2:36 p.m
The races in Zermatt, which have been announced as iconic, have to be cancelled. A slap in the face also for the FIS President.
The prestige object becomes a flop. The Alpine World Cup races at the foot of the Matterhorn should be “iconic”, Johan Eliasch, controversial President of the World Ski and Snowboard Federation FIS, promised great pictures of the premiere of the descents from Zermatt in Switzerland down to Cervinia in Italy. The spectacle was intended to send out nothing less than the dawn of a new era into the world.
On Saturday, the two men’s downhill runs on Saturday and Sunday had to be canceled for the time being – due to an acute lack of snow. And none other than the FIS race director Markus Waldner said surprisingly candidly: The cancellation, no, “that wasn’t bad luck”, with the termination of the races at this early point in time “we made a mistake”. And further: “We must respect nature.”
Climate change – “Must respect signals”
Waldner is a man from the South Tyrolean mountains. And he also registers what the autocrat Eliasch wanted to ignore on Friday before the start of the World Cup in Sölden. “We have climate change,” said Waldner on Saturday after the overdue cancellation of the men’s race on the Matterhorn. “We had,” he added, “a very, extremely warm summer, an extremely warm autumn,” all of which are “signals and we have to respect them.”
The races in Zermatt, where on November 5th and 6th the women are supposed to provide “iconic” races in two downhill runs, were controversial from the start. In the end there was not enough snow, especially above the finish area in Cervinia at over 2,860 meters. The problems had already become apparent in the summer. It was too warm to produce artificial snow. Where the glacier has retreated, there are no snow cannons anyway.
Source: sportschau.de