SOELDEN, Austria (AP) — Only a fraction of the discussion in the build-up to the Alpine Skiing World Cup opener this weekend has focused on who will win the races or whether Mikaela Shiffrin and Marco Odermatt will once again dominate the season.
The main topic is whether, in times of global warming, a winter sports season should still start as early as October.
Amid growing environmental concerns surrounding the sport, the World Cup traditionally kicks off with two giant slaloms on a glacier in Austria, with the women competing on Saturday and the men on Sunday.
They are the first two in a series of 90 races through mid-March, split equally between women and men, making it the busiest season in the World Cup’s 57-year history.
In a season not interrupted by Olympics or world championships, the calendar includes the first cross-border descents from Zermatt in Swiss in Cervinia in Italy in November, which were canceled when they were first scheduled last year.
The men’s circuit also includes a second North American sweep at Palisades Tahoe and Aspen in February and March. They also race at Beaver Creek in November, when the women visit Killington and Canada’s new World Cup venue, Tremblant.
A regular venue like Zagreb no longer appears on the calendar, as its low altitude has in recent years caused Croatian organizers more and more difficulty in preparing a route suitable for World Cup races.
Low altitude is not the problem in Sölden, where the start is three kilometers above sea level, but there is enough snow.
After an unusually warm start to the month and a lack of fresh snow, local organizers prepared the course in recent weeks by transporting 45,000 cubic meters of preserved snow from last spring up the hill to cover the racecourse in 1 .2 kilometers long. Artificial snow was added to this layer thanks to 22 snow cannons which were lit for two days and two nights along the track.
Protect Our Winters, a Colorado-based nonprofit focused on environmental issues, said Thursday on his Instagram page that this weekend’s event was “a race held far too early, due to glacier ice and artificial snow.”
The organization posted an image of the Soelden track – a white stripe on the brown, rocky hillside on a dark, rainy day – with the text “Move the date”, adding that it “demands that the FIS move the calendar races depending on the climate.
Earlier this year, an open letter urging the International Ski and Snowboard Federation to become more transparent about its strategy for the sport’s future in the face of the challenges of climate change was signed by hundreds of skiers, including Shiffrin, but not Odermatt.
The Swiss, two-time reigning champion of the general classification of the World Cup, is not yet sure whether the season can start later.
“Sölden has never been a real winter race, it shouldn’t be. Soelden is the season opener, a wake-up call to the ski industry and fans that we are starting again,” said Odermatt, who has won the race the past two years and each time won the general title.
However, for Shiffrin, it was obvious to support the initiative.
“For me, one of the most important reasons (to sign the open letter) is to have a call for action, transparency and progress on this topic. It is so dear to us, winter is the most important thing in our sports,” said the American.
Shiffrin is coming off another record-breaking World Cup season, during which she surpassed Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark’s best mark of 86 career victories.
Now the 88, the next step in 100 career wins may seem like overkill for the current season, but the American has won 12 or more races in a single season three times previously in her career.
That includes last season, where she had 14 wins and collected a personal best 2,206 points, almost 1,000 points more than second-place Lara Gut Behrami. The Swiss skier, alongside Slovakian Petra Vlhova and Italian Federica Brignone, will likely once again be among Shiffrin’s closest challengers.
Shiffrin has won the season opener twice, most recently in 2021. The women’s race was canceled last year.
On the men’s side, Odermatt also had a record season, becoming the first male skier to score more than 2,000 points.
Like Shiffrin, Odermatt finished the season with a huge lead, while Norwegians Aleksander Aamodt Kilde and Henrik Kristoffersen trailed by more than 700 and almost 900 points in second and third, respectively.
Odermatt is once again a strong favorite in Sunday’s race, having been on the podium in every giant slalom he has competed in since winning the season opener two years ago.
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Eric Willemsen on Twitter: https://twitter.com/eWilmedia
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