The Crans-Montana event was canceled after Lindsey Vonn was the third of six skiers to have an accident, but the race was deemed safe.
Lindsey Vonn’s World Cup downhill fall on Friday put her Olympic medal hopes in jeopardy but was deemed safe by race officials and team coaches.
It was agreed exactly where and when Vonn lost control as she landed the jump, spun and slid into the safety net, injuring her left knee.
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“It was probably good light where she completely missed the line and made a mistake,” World Cup race director Peter Geldl said.
Geldl spoke after a late afternoon meeting with race leaders and team leaders about the day’s report and details of the next morning’s schedule.
At the meeting in Crans-Montana, which began minutes after Vonn posted on social media that the dream of next weekend’s Olympic downhill was alive, there was general agreement that the race was safe. Some people opposed the cancellation itself.
Approximately 25 minutes after No. 6 starter Vonn crashed, while the race was still at a pause, Gerdl and the race jury halted the race for safety reasons.
“I think they’re doing a tough job,” U.S. national team head coach Paul Kristofik said.
By 10:50 a.m. local time in the cloudy Swiss Alps, the light had dimmed from the 10 a.m. start and was expected to get worse. It was.
The race may have seemed unsafe as three of the six starters failed to finish and even leader Jacqueline Wiles barely made it through the final tight corner, causing a crash.
Still, the Austrian coach said racer Nina Ortlieb’s exit as a first starter in the same place as Vonn was due to a poor race line, not poor light.
Roland Assinger later said the race was much safer than it was two weeks ago, when the women raced through Tarvisio, Italy, at “110 kilometers per hour (70 miles per hour) through fog where you couldn’t see anything.”
Asinger’s view was echoed by Vonn’s teammate Breezy Johnson, who was chatting with racers in the warm-up area when the news of the cancellation came and was caught swearing into a TV hot mic.
World champion Johnson recalled the “(expletive) rain at Tarvisio,” adding: “Then they’re like, ‘Visibility is too bad.'” Johnson later apologized for his choice of words in a social media post.
Swiss TV commentator Patrice Morisod laughed after hearing Johnson’s words live, and later said: “If we cancel races like this, there will be no ski sport.”
What Geldl and Morrisod agreed on was that they disliked the tight turn to the finish line that sent Norwegian racer Marte Momsen crashing into the fence and nearly fooled Wiles.
“It’s not downhill,” Morisodo said. “To me, that’s a big mistake for FIS.”
Gjerdl told the coaches’ meeting that the course design will be reviewed before the two-week world championships in Crans-Montana are held in a year’s time.
“We’re definitely going to work on this as we look to next year’s championship,” the race director admitted.
When the Milan-Cortina Olympics open next Friday, with the high-profile women’s downhill event scheduled for two days later, the world of 2027 feels far away.
Vonn has made a remarkable comeback as the fastest woman in her 40s in ski racing history, and enters the race in perfect shape to reach her goal of competing in the Olympics.
She may return Saturday and start in the super-G on the same hill. “The coach just said he kept her on the start list because he thinks it’s possible. Some athletes always want to race, that’s obvious. That’s their job,” said Geldl.
