M DH ÅRE 2019

[Swede]

Start in 30 minutes. loads of work have been done during the night. Weather a risk, cloudy but wind seem ok. So from the top—fingers crossed. Two different lines too chose from for Wallner and Olsson, one will have skiers fly longer in ”Lillbranten”. Decision will be made last minute.
Time to say bye to the great Aksel Lund Svindal. This will be his last race. He’ll move on to new things Monday morning.

UPDATE: Start moved down to SG start. Start pushed forward, wind picked up. Fog.

Looks like cancellation to me. Decision not made yet, but with the worsening westher I’d be surprised if it happens. Talk about Super Sunday, with both W and M DH the same day.

UPDATE 2: There will be a race today. Start in 10 minutes. Lowered start as there has not been any training runs in the top (1:20ish instead of 1:40ish). Personally I would liked to see a cancellation and that they would have had the chance to run the full course. It is a very nice DH then. Will be lot of discussions. Weather with snow. Fog. Austrians upset. Wallner persisted to run the race today.

 

[Bolder]

ALS always seemed like a cool guy, he's been in a few "behind the scenes" segments. There was a nice one recently where he had this horrible flu and had to eat at a separate table from the rest of the team...

 

[Primoz]

Only way I would like it better would be if Aksel would win it, but otherwise this race should never be run. Kitz is one thing as you have 100.000 people down there and almost zero chance for running it day or two later, but on WCH there's plenty of chances to make it fair race. Going off most run line (not necessarily ideal line) and you are 10cm deep in snow... not that it's only dangerous, it's also extremely unfair, especially for WCH.

 

[Swede]

I agree @Primoz. Should have been moved. But it wasn’t really unfair or dangerous. Everyone had the same shitty/tough conditions. Actually better vis at the end. Perhaps unfair that Aksel and Kjetil used to ”Viking weather”. Going to be a lot of drunk Norwegians in Åre tonight.

 

[Dwight]

Spoiler: Top Results

 

[James]

Impressive by Svindal. Is that sticky wet snow?

 

[Swede]

Impressive by Svindal. Is that sticky wet snow?

Dry snow.

 

[Bolder]

Almost a fairy-tale finish. That off-camber left in the top 1/3 looked really gnarly. Seemed like it was one of the crucial sections -- those who high-lined it held their speed.