When Mikaela Shiffrin started skiing again weeks after her horrific accident last year, the American star was even more wary of the potential dangers of the training course.
Shiffrin suffered a stab wound to the abdomen and severe injuries to her abdominal muscles during the World Cup giant slalom race. But the two-time Olympic champion knew that training could be just as risky.
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If not more.
“When I came back from my injury, I was aware of the trackside fences and the holes in the course and where the trees were,” Shiffrin said in a recent interview.
“We often train in situations where there are too many variables to control, and sometimes we have to decide: Is this unreasonably dangerous, or is it within a reasonable level of risk that we need to train for? Is this something we need to practice and is this the only way we can do it?”
French skier Alexis Pinturault had a similar experience.
“We are training in a lot of places that are not very safe. Yes, that’s 100 percent certain,” the 2021 World Cup men’s overall champion said.
The ongoing safety debate in alpine skiing came into focus in September when World Cup racer Matteo Franzoso died in a crash during pre-season training in Chile, less than five months before the Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Italy.
The 25-year-old Italian crashed through two layers of safety barriers on the La Parva course and crashed into a wooden fence located 6-7 meters (20-23 feet) outside the course. He died two days later from cranial trauma and subsequent brain swelling.
Franzoso is the third young Italian skier to die in less than a year, with the talented French skier killed in a training accident in April.
Are the risks in skiing life-threatening?
Shiffrin, a five-time overall champion and a record 101 World Cup winner, dealt with lingering post-traumatic stress disorder when she returned to skiing following an injury.
She returned to racing in late February, nearly three months after the crash.
“Athletes and coaches and everyone has gotten so used to saying that there are inherent risks in sports that we start to mask some of the real life-threatening risks,” Shiffrin said.
“This was a challenge for me. I was very afraid of risks for the rest of the season. If you think about it too much, it becomes paralyzing. But it’s very important that you can assess what those risks are and find ways to mitigate them as much as possible. Risk is part of the sport and it’s not OK to say take it or leave it.”
The problem with training courses is that, for financial reasons, they often do not have the same safety standards in place that apply to race courses.
There will be a small number of staff on the hill to maintain the conditions of the snow surface, as well as course workers. There will be fewer safety nets installed along the course to prevent racers from falling if they crash. There is also a shortage of medical staff and equipment, including helicopters, for immediate transport to hospitals.
Italy’s Sofia Goggia, the 2018 Olympic downhill champion, called ski racing an “extreme sport” and said: “At a high level, it’s similar to Formula 1 or MotoGP, with downhills, super-Gs, but also giant slalom. The speeds are 80-90 km/h (50-56 mph), so there’s always risk.”
Could more nets be the solution for teams heading into the Winter Olympics?
Goggia said the abundance of nets makes the course safer for races. However, she pointed out that simply adding more networks will not solve the problem of training courses.
If it snows overnight, the safety net must be removed, the slopes cleared of fresh snow, and the safety net replaced before skiers descend in the early morning.
While this is a natural procedure for local organizers and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) on race day, the question is who will be in charge of it during preseason training camps.
For Goggia, it would be a mistake to blame only the team’s coach, who cannot be held responsible because “coaches only teach people how to ski.”
She recalled the day Franzoso crashed in September. At the time, three teams from Austria, Switzerland, and Italy were training on that slope.
“It’s inconceivable that they probably weren’t aware of the danger,” Goggia said. “But if we want to secure the training slope as a World Cup slope, there has to be a completely different organization. The answer is simple: we can do more. But in the end who will do it? Who wants to invest millions of euros?”
Will dedicated training courses solve ski safety issues?
After Franzoso’s tragedy, the Italian Winter Sports Federation called on the FIS to establish dedicated training courses with safety nets similar to those used in World Cup races, both in the southern hemisphere, such as Chile, Argentina and New Zealand, and in the United States and Europe.
Just before the opening round of the World Cup in Austria last weekend, FIS president Johan Elias said the governing body was working to “prevent as many terrible accidents as possible”.
The FIS was working with national federations and local organizers to consider safety improvements, from planning race calendars to give skiers more rest, to having more medical staff on the grounds, to installing more netting and better preparing the snow surfaces on the trails.
“When you’re driving at speed in training, you need to make sure the safety standards are exactly the same as on the big race day,” Eliash said.
But that may be too ambitious, said Roland Assinger, coach of the Austrian women’s team.
“The risk always remains, but we as coaches try to minimize it,” said Assinger, a former World Cup downhiller.
“Copper Mountain (in Colorado, USA) is the safest training course in the world, with an A-net from top to bottom and countless B-nets. There are also many B-nets in South America, but not at the same level, because investing millions of dollars is not financially viable.”
Even before Franzoso’s death, the Austrian federation began shipping extra safety nets to overseas training camps this summer.
“Was it enough? It was a first step,” said Ski Austria’s general secretary Christian Scherer. “But we need a coordinated approach from national federations.”
Scherer added that the responsibility for safer training courses cannot be left to local ski resorts.
Who pays for safety improvements in winter sports – Olympics, FIS?
That’s the question. Elias said the FIS had distributed “almost 100 million euros ($117 billion)” to its member federations over the past four years “to secure funding”.
Elias added that major countries such as Austria and Switzerland “have so much money” that they could invest more in the safety of training courses.
“For smaller federations, this can be difficult. This is where we step in and help,” Eliash said.
“I hope the big federations can work together and coordinate a little better in the areas where all the countries train,” said Austrian speed specialist Vincent Kriechmayr, a former world champion in downhill and super-G.
Assinger said it is “certainly a good idea” for FIS to support some venues that house teams for offseason training camps.
“But what if that happens? We’ll find out next summer,” said the Austrian coach. “For now, we’re just talking.”
