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Watching racers whizz by means of the Tofana schuss at high velocity might be the signature picture of the snowboarding world championships.
Wedged between two huge partitions of rock close to the highest of the ladies’s downhill course, the schuss, or “chute,” hurtles skiers down the mountain at greater than 130 kph (80 mph).
It’s the place one misplaced edge or unsuitable transfer can imply the distinction between a gold medal and a horrific crash.
The schuss can be a giant a part of an limitless array of spectacular surroundings in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the resort referred to as the “Queen” of the Italian Dolomites.
The pure fantastic thing about Cortina might be of particular significance at these championships, with organizers hoping that the photographs from the slopes beamed all over the world to TV viewers will make up for the dearth of followers amid the coronavirus pandemic.
After final 12 months’s World Cup finals in Cortina have been worn out due to the unfold of COVID-19, organizers requested the Worldwide Ski Federation to postpone the worlds to 2022. However the request was denied as a result of that will have put the competitors too near subsequent 12 months’s Beijing Olympics.
“We didn’t have an alternate,” organizing committee president Alessandro Benetton stated. “Up within the mountains we are saying, ‘You’ve bought to construct the hearth with the wooden that you’ve got.’ We’re wanting on the glass as half-full. We’re hoping it’s a giant media occasion.”
As a part of a nationwide ban on followers at sports activities occasions in Italy, no spectators might be allowed in Cortina when the championships open Monday with the ladies’s mixed race.
“Certain, we might be missing some environment,” Benetton stated. “However we’re hoping that might be compensated by the TV protection — just like the way in which Cortina was placed on the map by the 1956 Olympics.”
ATHLETE SAFETY
As a part of a strict anti-virus protocol, medals will awarded to athletes on the slopes within the end space straight after races finish — versus at a medal plaza on the town in the course of the night as per customized.
In addition to fixed testing for the coronavirus for everybody in attendance, color-coded bubbles have been set as much as maintain completely different teams aside: a pink bubble for groups (athletes, coaches, workforce physicians, bodily therapists, ski males) and different race personnel; a blue bubble for organizational employees, volunteers and regulation enforcement personnel; a yellow bubble for the media; and a inexperienced bubble for company and dignitaries.
MEDAL FAVORITES
Two-time Olympic champion Mikaela Shiffrin might be a high contender within the opening occasion, the ladies’s mixed. Former total World Cup champion Lara Intestine-Behrami has received 4 straight World Cup super-G races and might be an amazing favourite for that race on Day 2.
The boys’s super-G will even be contested Tuesday with Olympic champion Matthias Mayer among the many contenders.
The signature downhills might be held on the center weekend, with American racer Breezy Johnson among the many contenders for the ladies’s title on Feb. 13 and Mayer going up in opposition to Swiss rival Beat Feuz for the coveted males’s gold medal a day later.
Italian teammates Marta Bassino and Federica Brignone are aiming for glory on dwelling snow within the girls’s big slalom, with total World Cup chief Petra Vlhová trying to defend her GS title from 2019. Shiffrin will then go for a fifth straight slalom world title.
INJURIES
A number of large names might be lacking due to harm.
Olympic champion Sofia Goggia broke her proper knee in a fall final weekend — a devastating strategy to finish her run of 4 straight victories in World Cup downhills.
Additionally final month, defending total World Cup champion Aleksander Aamodt Kilde tore ligaments in his proper knee in a crash.
OLYMPIC TEST
The championships might be a giant check run for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
A brand new males’s velocity course might be used for the primary time. It’s referred to as Vertigine, which interprets as “vertigo.”
The slalom races might be contested on the steep Druscié A piste, which was the place Austrian nice Toni Sailer received one in all his three gold medals on the 1956 Olympics.
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