When Mikaela Shiffrin started skiing again weeks after her terrifying crash last year, the American star was even more alert to the potential dangers of training courses.
Shiffrin’s injuries – puncture wound to her abdomen and severe damage to her abdominal muscles – came in a World Cup giant slalom race but the two-time Olympic champion knew that training could be just as risky – if not more.
“When I came back from injury I was aware of the fencing on the side and a hole in the course and where the trees were,” Shiffrin said.
“We are often training in conditions where the variables are just too many to control and you have to decide sometimes: Is this unreasonably dangerous or is this within a reasonable level of danger that we need to train, we need to practice, and this is the only way we can do it?”
French skier Alexis Pinturault had similar experiences.
“We are training in many places where it’s not really safe, yes, that’s 100% sure,” the 2021 men’s overall World Cup champion said.
The issue with training courses is that, for financial reasons, they usually lack the same safety standards that apply to race courses.
Smaller crews of course workers are on the hill to maintain the condition of the snow surface; fewer safety netting is placed along the course to break the fall when racers crash; and less medical staff and equipment, like helicopters for immediate transport to a hospital, are available.
Ongoing safety discussions in Alpine skiing came into fresh focus in September, less than five months before the Milan-Cortina Olympics, when World Cup racer Matteo Franzoso died following a crash in preseason training in Chile.
The 25-year-old Italian crashed through two layers of safety fencing on a course at La Parva and slammed into a wooden fence positioned six to seven meters outside the course. He died two days later from cranial trauma and a consequent swelling of his brain.
Franzoso was the third young Italian skier to die in less than a year, and a talented French skier died following a training crash in April.
Dedicated training courses
After the Franzoso tragedy, the Italian Winter Sports Federation called on FIS to establish dedicated training courses, both in the southern hemisphere in countries like Chile, Argentina and New Zealand, as well as in the U.S. and Europe, with safety netting just like courses used for World Cup races.
On the fringe of the World Cup season-opening races in Austria last weekend, FIS President Johan Eliasch said the governing body was working to “prevent as much as possible horrible accidents to happen.” (AP)
