Premier Neige cancelled in Val d'Isere
Friday December 2, 2011 - Email this article to a friend

The course in the French resort is pretty much bare except for artificial snow and now race officials have decided to move the contest.

"After many efforts to produce snow, the ladies' and men's Alpine World Cup competitions in Val d'Isère have to be cancelled," said a short statement from FIS.

FIS race officials visted the French resort on Wednesday to inspect the course and see for themselves how much snow there was.

It has happened before and it is always a risk that there is not enough snow in Val d'Isere at this time of year, but usually the racing is held in another European resort.

With poor snow across The Alps and a packed timetable the men's and women's races will be held in Beaver Creek, USA.

The ski teams are all in North America at the moment with the men in Beaver Creek anyway and the women have moved round from Aspen USA to Lake Louise,Canada. It therefore makes sense too.

The announcement was made by the FIS Race Director, Guenter Hujara, on Wednesday.

Birds of PreyBeaver Creek will now play host to a trio of World Cup men's and ladies' competitions next week, December 6th-8th.

The races will include Men's Giant Slalom on Tuesday, December 6th; Women's Super-G on Wednesday, December 7th; and Men's Slalom on Thursday, December 8^th.

We reported at the end of last month within this story on the snow conditions round The Alps that the Val d'Isere races would most likely be cancelled.

The decision means the women will race on Beaver Creek's famous Birds of Prey Downhill course for the first time.

The men are already competing in three other races starting tomorrow, Friday 2^nd, with the Downhill. It continues with Super-G on Saturday, December 3rd and Giant Slalom on Sunday, December 4^th . 

"While we don't ever want to hope for another organiser to lose races, picking up these events is certainly an added bonus for our community.  We have a long track record of hosting transplanted races and it is a pleasure to be able to step in once again and help the FIS in this regard," said the President of the Vail Valley Foundation, Ceil Folz.

The Women's Downhill is sure to attract interest in part because of the recent separation of Lindsey Vonn from her husband, Thomas.

He was her coach, manager and advisor so people will want to see how it may affect her racing.

"We all thought that the first time we would see Lindsey Vonn racing in Beaver Creek would be in 2013 with the test event for our new ladies Downhill course," added Folz.  "We couldn't be more excited about the potential of not only seeing Lindsey compete here this year, but also on Birds of Prey."

The course was designed by the Swiss Olympic ski racer, Bernhard Russi.

However there have been a few problems on the course this week.

The first practice run for the men was cancelled after the racers said sections of the course were dangerous. Bode Miller was one of the most vociferous and the course was worked on.

It looks like being quite a week of racing in the Colorado resort and we will bring you all the news. 

Britain's number one ski racer, Dougie Crawford, will be blogging for us at PlanetSKI.

For a look at a video taken on the opening day of Beaver Creek see his story on PlanetSKI.

For the spirit of the mountains

Bookmark this page

Related Articles